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Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Contents

EVERYDAY TONALITY

EVERYDAY TONALITY II 2017-03-10, 00:34

Tonical neighbourhood phone

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Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Contents

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL DATA Tagg, Philip: Everyday Tonality II (towards a tonal theory of what most people hear) New York & Huddersfield: The Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press, 2014 e-book latest update 2017-03-10, 00:34, 599 pages, ISBN 978-0-9908068-0-6 hard-copy version, 2017-03-10, 599 pages, ISBN 978-0-9908068-1-3

KEYWORDS: music, musicology, music education, music theory, tonality, tonicality, pitch, octave, modes, modality, chords, melody, harmony, tertial, quartal

PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION DATA Set in Palatino Linotype using Adobe FrameMaker 8 and Photoshop CS3, 10; CaptureWiz Pro 4.5, FontCreator 6.5, Steinberg WaveLab 6, VideoLAN 2.1.5, MuseScore 1.3, on a Toshiba Satellite Pro laptop U500D (Windows XP) Edited, indexed and page laid by the author.

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The Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press (MMMSP) 87 West Brookside Drive, Larchmont, NY 10538 (USA); www.tagg.org/mmmsp

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercialNon-Derivative 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

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Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Contents

For my comrade and colleague Franco Fabbri, for his students, and for anyone who wants to bring music theory out of its nineteenth-century closet.

EVERYDAY TONALITY II —Towards a tonal theory of what most people hear—

by Philip Tagg

version 2.6.4

New York & Huddersfield: The Mass Media Music Scholars’ Press, 2014-2017

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Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — Contents

Table of Contents Preface 11 Why this book? 11 Why Everyday Tonality II? 13 Basic terms 16 Who’s the book for? 17 Caveats about the title and contents 17 Basic structure and contents 19 Rationale and reservations 19 New terms and compromise 20 Surprising discoveries 22

Overview of chapters 22 Glossary 26

Restriction of subject area 21

Appendices 26

References 27

Index section 27

Formal and practical 28 Cross-referencing and order of topics 28 Musical source references 28 Reference system 28 Online recordings 29

Accessing and using musical sources 29 Online notation 30

‘Cit. mem.’ 30

Tonal denotation 31 Note names 31 Scale degrees, scale steps and intervals 32 Octave designation and register 35 Scale degree chord shorthand 35 Chords 35 — 1. Lead-sheet; 2. Quartal chords; 3. Roman-numeral chords Reflection on the ionian as default mode 37

Music examples 37; 8va and 15ma bassa 38; Progressions and sections 38

Language and typography 39 Pronunciation 39 Capitals and italics 39 Small capitals 40

Spelling and punctuation 39 Mode names 40 Italics 40

Other practicalities 41 Abbreviations 41 Footnotes 41

Timings and durations 41 Fonts 41

Acknowledgements 43

Chapter 1. Note, pitch, tone 45 Note 45 Pitch 47 Tone, tonal, tonality 51 ‘Tonal’ and ‘modal’ 54 Tonicality 56

Timbre and tone 58

Tonal note names 49 ‘Tonal’ and ‘tonical’ 52 Tonality, Tonart, Tonalité, Tonicity, Other meanings of ‘tone’ 58

Summary in 15 points + bridge 63

Chapter 2. Tuning, octave, interval 65 General tuning systems 65 Extra-octave tuning 65 Intra-octave tuning 67 Intervals 67 Octave 68 Intervals and intra-octave tuning 70 Equal-tone tuning 74 Instrument-specific tuning 79 Summary in 14 points 83

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Chapter 3. Heptatonic modes 85 Intro 85 Scales, modes, tonal vocabulary 87 Ionianisation (^ê) 90 Modes and ‘modality’ 92 Heptatonic: why seven? 93

The heptatonic-diatonic ‘church’ modes 94 Theory 94

Examples 99

Ionian: Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â ^ê 99 Dorian: Â Ê $Î Ô Û ^â $7 99 Phrygian: Â $Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê 101 Lydian: Â Ê ^Î #Ô Û ^â ^ê 102 Mixolydian: Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â$ê 103 Aeolian: Â Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê 105

Non-diatonic heptatonic modes 112 Maqamat, flat twos and foreignness 114 Basic concepts and theory 114 Hijaz and phrygian 120 Balkan modes 134

Summary in 14 points 146

Tetrachords and jins 118 ‘¡Viva España!’ 128 Bartók modes 138

One last point 147

Chapter 4. Non-heptatonic modes 151 Tritonic and tetratonic 151

Pentatonic 153

Anhemitonic pentatonic 154 Doh-pentatonic 154 La-pentatonic 155 Ré-pentatonic 156 Blues pentatonic 158 [Doh-pentatonic blues 159; La-pentatonic blues 161] Theoretical bridge from five to six 163

Hexatonic modes 165 No names 165 Minor or la-hexatonic 170

Major hexatonic 169 Quartal or ré hexatonic 172

Non-tonical modes 173 The whole-tone scale 173

Octatonic 175

Final thoughts on non-ionian modes 175 Summary in 14 points 177

Chapter 5. Melody 179 Defining parameters 179 General characteristics of melody 179 Metaphorical nomenclature 181

Typologies of melody 182

Structural typologies 183

Pitch contour 183 Tonal vocabulary 186 Dynamics/mode of articulation 187 Rhythmic profile 188 Body and melodic rhythm 188

Language and melodic rhythm 189

Culturally specific melodic formulae 190

Patterns of recurrence 193

Connotative typologies 196 [Dream 196; Supermusic 197; Recitation 198]

Melisma 199

Summary in 11 points 202

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Chapter 6. Polyphony 205 Polyphony: three meanings 205 Heterophony 210 Counterpoint 214

Drone 207 Homophony 212 Summary in 7 points 217

Chapter 7. Chords 219 Definition and scope 219 Roman numerals 220 Recognition of tertial chords 225

Tertial triads

220

Inversions 225

Lead sheet chord shorthand 229 Explanations 231 Symbol components 235

Basic rationale 234

Name of chord root 235 Type of seventh 236 Altered fifths 238 Omitted notes 238 Suspended 4ths and 9ths 240 Anomalies 242 Flat, sharp, plus and minus 242

Non-tertial chords 243

Tertial triad type 236 Ninths, elevenths, thirteenths 237 Added ninths and sixths 239 Inversions 240 Enharmonic spelling 242

Summary in 7 points 243

Chapter 8. ‘Classical’ harmony 245 Intro 245 Classical harmony 249 Triads and tertial 249

History and definitions 247 Syntax, narrative, and linear ‘function 252

Voice leading, the ionian mode, modulation and directionality 252

The key clock (circle of fifths) 255 Cadential mini-excursion 258 The key clock (reprise) 261 Circle-of-fifths progressions 262 Anticlockwise/flatwards 262 Clockwise/sharpwards: a provisional note 264

Partial dissolution of classical harmony 265

Classical harmony in popular music 267 Summary in 6 points 271

Chapter 9. Non-classical tertial harmony 273 Non-classical tertial: intro and preliminaries 273 Ionian and barré 275 Tertial major triads in non-classical harmony 276 Permanent Picardy third 276 Power chords 280 ‘Acoustic’ tertiality 284 Unaltered non-ionian tertial harmony 286 Phrygian tertial harmony 288 Mixolydian 290

Summary in 5 points 292

Lydian tertial harmony 289 Aeolian tertial harmony 291

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Chapter 10. Quartal harmony 293 Theory 293

No ‘sus’, no ‘add’, no ‘omit’ 293

Basic concepts 294 Chord shorthand 294

Quartal and quintal 295

Quartal triads and the tonical neighbourhood 295 Crossing neighbourhood borders 302

Quartal histories and examples 306 Elevens, the USA and corporate modernity 306 Euroclassical thirdlessness 315 Quartal jazz 323 Quartal rock 328 Quartal pop 333 ‘Folk’ fourths and fifths 334 Banjo tunings 334 Open tuning and drones 340

Counterpoise 336 ‘The Tailor and the Mouse’

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Summary in 18 points 349

Chapter 11. One-chord changes 353 Harmonic impoverishment- 353 The wonders of one chord 358 Summary in 5 points 369

Extensional and intensional 356 G — Which G? 360

Chapter 12. Chord shuttles 371 About the material 372 Supertonic shuttles (I\II) 374 Plagal shuttles 375 Quintal shuttles (I\V) 381 Submediantal shuttles (I\VI) 384 Subtonic shuttles (I\$VII) 389 Shuttle or counterpoise sandwich? 396 Summary in 16 points 399

Chapter 13. Chord loops 1 401 Circular motion 401 Vamp, blues and rock 411

Vamps, loops and turnarounds 404

‘Classic’ rock’n’roll: IV-I 412 Outgoing, medial and incoming chords 414 Beatles harmony: bridging the gap 416

Summary in 8 points 419

Chapter 14. Chord loops & bimodality 421 Ionian or mixolydian? 421 Spot the key 426

Aeolian and phrygian 433 Mediantal loops 442 Rock dorian and I-III 443 Double shuttle excursion 445

Ionian mediantal ‘narrative’ and ‘folk’ dorian 445

Summary in 14 points 448

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Chapter 15. The Yes We Can chords 451 The four chords 452 Late renaissance and Andean bimodality 453 Four chords, four changes 455 First impressions: from zero to I 456 Harmonic departure: from I to III 458 Spanish-language bull’s-eyes 458

I - iii - vi - IV 470

English-language misses 459

I - V - vi - IV 471

IOCM in combination 474

Summary in 10 points 477

Appendices Glossary 479 Reference appendix 505 List of examples, figures and tables 549 Index 559 Alphabetical index 560 Numerical index 594 X Scale-degree index X 594 A Chord shorthand index A 596 k Chord sequence index k 597

FFBk00Preface.fm. 2017-03-10, 00:35

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Preface Why this book? It was in 2005 that Franco Fabbri first asked me to produce a book based on some encyclopædia articles I’d written between 1998 and 2000.1 I was slow to respond because I didn’t then see how repackaging that work could have much positive impact on music studies. Two things made me change my mind. The first was when Franco showed me an Italian music theory textbook. ‘Look’, he said, ‘this is all my students have to go by’. Skimming through its pages I realised that, like equivalents in other languages, it dealt only with certain tonal elements of EUROCLASSICAL music2 and that it paid particular attention to conventional notions of harmony within that tradition. Glancing through that textbook, I was reminded of a problem I’d often had to confront when writing the original encyclopædia articles: how to talk about common tonal practices that don’t conform to the sort of tonal theory taught in many seats of musical learning. Explaining something as common and as ostensibly simple as the La Bamba chord loop (as in La Bamba, Guantanamera, Wild Thing, Pata Pata, Twist & Shout etc.) in terms of tonic, subdominant and dominant had for some time struck me as about as productive as using theories of combustion to explain electricity. And yet some music scholars still try to apply Schenkerian notions of harmonic directionality to tonal configurations in which notions like ‘dominant’ and ‘perfect cadence’ are at best questionable, if not altogether irrelevant.3 If restricted notions of tonality were the only problem with institutionalised traditions of musical learning in the West, things would not be so bad. Unfortunately the problems go much deeper because that same tradition has focussed almost exclusively on tonal 1. 2. 3.

See EPMOW —Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World— vol. II (Tagg, 2002). Throughout this book I use EUROCLASSICAL to refer to European classical music; see p. 14 and Glossary (p. 486) for explanation of this term. See video Dominants and Dominance (Tagg 2009c).

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issues and tended to steer clear of parameters like metricity, periodicity, timbre, groove and sonic staging, which some scholars still earnestly believe to be of secondary importance. There’s no room here to explore conventional European music theory’s predilection for harmonic, melodic and thematic parameters that can, at least to some extent, be graphically represented on the page as blobs, lines and squiggles, except to say that Western staff notation developed to scribally encode aspects of music in the euroclassical tradition that were difficult to memorise, rather than to record the specifics of other music cultures. This tonal fixation has promoted a mindset according to which monometric music, whose pitches can be arranged in octaves consisting of twelve equal intervals each, is analysable because it is notatable; other types of music are, so to speak, neither. Indeed, even the downbeat anticipations and ‘neutral’ thirds often heard in English-language popular music from the twentieth century look incongruous in Western notation, while aspects of sound treatment essential to the expressive qualities of music we hear on a daily basis —echo, delay, reverb, saturation, phasing, etc.— are conspicuous by their absence.4 Conventional approaches to music analysis in the West may serve some use in helping us appreciate how a sense of narrative works in sonata form (‘diataxis’, the ‘extensional’ aesthetic), but they have done very little to help us understand other equally important aspects of form that exist inside the extended present (‘syncrisis’, ‘intensional’ aesthetics).5 The first edition of this book was published in 2009 since when I mainly worked on Music’s Meanings: a modern musicology for nonmusos (Tagg, 2013). In that book I also tried to right a few of the graphocentric wrongs just mentioned, but I regret that so much 4.

5.

See, for example, the semantic contortion of ‘inverse’ ( zl. ) v. ‘normal’ (l. z) in the Harvard Dictionary of Music (1958) entry for dotting, even though zl. (‘inverse’ dotting) is identified as ‘usual’ in certain types of music. Intensional and extensional are two useful concepts, first coined by Andrew Chester (1970). For short definition of the extended present, see Glossary and Tagg (2013: 252-3). Diataxis and syncrisis, see Glossary and Chapters 11 and 12 in Tagg (2013: 383-484).

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more needs to be done. It’s a task that would involve several lifetimes of research and result in several books of this size. Still, at least one thing became clear when working on Music’s Meanings: I would have to rewrite and expand Everyday Tonality.

Why ‘Everyday Tonality II’? There are at least seven answers to that question. [1] Half the first edition of Everyday Tonality consisted of reworked encyclopædia entries that were too short to allow for substantial treatment of several of the book’s topics. That is certainly the case with the exposé about quartal harmony which has increased in size from a dozen pages in the 2009 edition to a sixty-page chapter in this one. Quartal harmony is simply a much more widespread and multi-faceted phenomenon of everyday tonality than could reasonably fit into just a few pages. [2] Some common aspects of everyday tonality were not covered at all in the first edition, for example bass lines and hexatonic modes. While bass lines aren’t the focus of much attention in this edition either —it’s the topic of another book— hexatonic modes are. I wanted to understand why terms of structural designation existed for pentatonic and heptatonic but not for hexatonic modes. I never found out why, but at least I’m able in this edition to propose a system for understanding the mechanics of some commonly used hexatonic modes.6 [3] The modes discussed in the previous edition were mainly diatonic and heptatonic —the ‘church’ modes, including the ionian— while others were absent. I felt I had lapsed into a tonally ethnocentric default mode (pun intended) that needed correction if my critique of conventional music theory’s ethnocentrism were to have any credibility. That’s why this edition addresses some ‘non-European’ modes, particularly those containing flat twos and/or augmented seconds, in order to explain how they work, including their role as tonal embodiment of an exotic ‘Other’. Due to the correction 6.

The whole-tone scale is also hexatonic and tonal (it contains six tones) but it is not tonical: it contains no perfect fifth and has no hierarchy of scale steps. Like the octatonic scale, it can only be transposed to one other position.

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of this omission, to the theorisation of hexatonic modes and to the improved theorisation of penta- and heptatonic modes, the size of the chapters on (melodic) mode has increased from one twelvepage chapter to two chapters covering more than ninety pages. [4] The 2009 edition contained a few factual errors and lacunae that have been put to right in this edition.7 [5] Due to restrictions of space, time and copyright legislation, the original encyclopædia entries included very few music examples. Even though there were more examples in the 2009 edition than in the encyclopædia articles, I still felt there was insufficient musical meat on the theoretical bone. That’s why I’ve radically increased the number of music examples and reset them using better notation and image-processing software. This expansion of space devoted to ‘actual music’ will, I hope, make the book more convincing and more fun to read. I’ve also tried to include, wherever permissible, links to online recordings of the music cited as notation (see ‘Musical source references’, p. 26). [6] The 2009 edition contained a few passages where I fell into the trap of terminological inertia and inexactitude. Particularly embarrassing was the occasional use of ‘mode’ in the absurdly restricted sense of any heptatonic mode except the ionian (whoops!), and the occasional confusion of ‘tonical’ (having a tonal centre) with ‘tonal’ (having a tone or tones). Such terminological lapses have been rigorously expunged from this edition. [7] Most importantly, the concepts of tonality circulating in Western academies of music, whatever their canonic repertoire, are still all too often inadequate, illogical and ethnocentric. They simply don’t do much to help music students living in a multicultural, internetlinked, ‘global’ world to get to grips with the tonal nuts and bolts of all those musics that don’t fit the conceptual grid of categories developed to explain certain aspects of the euroclassical or classical jazz traditions. 7.

One error concerns my apparent misunderstanding of Glarean’s theory about the hypomodes. I have removed that short section from this edition because it’s quite peripheral to the issues under discussion (see ftnt. 48, p. 111).

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Reason number 7 is also why I try in this book to bring some order into terms denoting important general aspects of tonal structuration. To do that I have to explain widely used concepts like tone, melody, accompaniment and harmony in ways that relate those phenomena, not just to the music of certain minorities living in certain parts of a certain continent during a certain short period of its history (the euroclassical tradition from c.1730 to c.1910;), but to a much wider range of musics and people. Of course, that tradition is, along with the jazz canon, an essential ingredient in the everyday tonality of millions, and its unique characteristics need clear explanation in a book devoted to the ‘everyday’. But such explanation is also impossible if the specific dynamic of those canonic traditions cannot be understood in relation to the panoply of other tonalities in everyday circulation. The difficulty is that the vast majority of those other musics is under-theorised, in the sense that existing music theory often seems to have either misleading terms or no terms at all to designate their specific tonal dynamics. The reform and de-ethnocentrification of music theory is an uphill battle in the context of institutions whose existence relies on musical traditions that have to be socially dead, or at least moribund, in order for them to become fixed as canons —for example, the euroclassical canon, the jazz canon, the ‘academic safari’ canon and, more recently, the rock canon. Such fixation of repertoire, of its aesthetics and structural theory, is more often than not understood as a necessity in institutions that repeat course content from one year to the next in the name of consistency or cost cutting, and that are subjected to ‘league tables’ of ‘excellence’ that have to be concocted on the basis of a consensus about ‘what everybody does’ or ‘always has done’ to function at all. If EXCEL means to surpass, to stand out, etc., excellence based on league tables is a blatant contradictio in terminis. I hope this book can contribute, at least in a small way, to exposing ‘excellence’ as the destructive oxymoron of mediocrity it really is.8 8.

Oxymoron: an intentional contradictio in terminis used for comic effect.

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Basic terms Before going any further I’d better explain what I mean by certain terms that recur throughout the book, right from the start, one even in its title. The following list gives no more than terse, temporary definitions of terms explained in greater detail at various points in the book or in the Glossary (p. 477, ff.). • NOTE: single discrete sound of finite duration in music; • TONE: NOTE with discernible fundamental pitch; • TONAL: having the properties of a TONE; • TONALITY: system according to which TONEs are configured; • TONIC: musical keynote or reference TONE; • TONICAL: having a TONIC or keynote. • MODE: abstraction of TONAL vocabulary reduced to single occurrences of its constituent TONES. • MODAL: having the characteristics of a MODE; • POLYPHONY: music in which at least two sounds of differing pitch or timbre are heard at the same time; • POLYPHONIC: having the characteristics of POLYPHONY; • CHORD: simultaneous sounding of at least two differently named tones; • TRIAD: CHORD consisting of three differently named tones; • THIRD: pitch interval of three or four semitones (minor/major); • FOURTH: pitch interval of five semitones (‘perfect’); • TERTIAL (of CHORDs): based on the stacking of THIRDs; • QUARTAL (of CHORDs): based on the stacking of FOURTHs; • SHUTTLE: repeated to-and-fro movement between two chords; • LOOP: short repeated sequence of typically three or four different chords. Other recurrent terms requiring initial explanation are EUROCLASSICAL and KEY-CLOCK. I use EUROCLASSICAL when referring to the European classical music tradition because not all classical music is European (e.g. Tunisian nouba, the rāga traditions of India, Cambodian court music, the yăyuè — 雅乐— of imperial China, etc; see also Glossary, p. 486). I avoid ART MUSIC labels because these tend to imply that musics without the label involve no art.

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I tend to use the expression KEY CLOCK more often than CIRCLE OF FIFTHS because (a) it’s shorter; (b) it’s easier to use adjectivally, e.g. ‘key-clock distance’ rather than ‘circle-of-fifths distance’ or ‘distance round the circle of fifths’ (see Glossary, p. 491). Words and expressions like HOMOPHONY, HETEROPHONY, COUNTERHIJAZ, MAJORISED PHRYGIAN are all defined in the GLOSSARY. POINT, COUNTERPOISE, RÉ-PENTATONIC, LA-HEXATONIC,

Basic conventions for the abbreviated indication of scale degrees and chords are presented under ‘Tonal denotation’ (pp. 28-35).

Who’s the book for? This book contains many short music examples, so it’s really for anyone who can decipher Western staff notation in the G and F clefs. Although not totally essential, some acquaintance with the rudiments of music theory, including conventional euroclassical or jazz harmony, is probably an advantage. In fact, when writing this book, I’ve mainly had in mind the music students I’ve met since 1971, and the conceptual problems they’ve seemed to encounter when they’ve met me for the subjects I’ve taught (chiefly related to ‘popular’ music, including music and the moving image). However, this book should also interest anyone who, with some notational literacy, wants to understand the tonal mechanisms of several widely disseminated types of music.

Caveats about the title and contents The repertoire I draw on for illustration and generalisation must invariably be music that I’m in some way familiar with because there’s no point in writing about things of which I have little or no knowledge. That means, just as invariably, that the ‘everyday tonality’ in the book’s title can never be everyone’s everyday everywhere at all times. The problem is that SOME TONAL ELEMENTS IN WIDELY HEARD MUSIC DIFFUSED IN MAINLY, BUT BY NO MEANS EXCLUSIVELY,

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE CULTURES IN THE LATE TWENTIETH CENTURY, i.e. MUSIC THAT PHILIP TAGG HAS PLAYED, SUNG OR HEARD is

not a very catchy book title. I therefore apologise to readers who feel I have shortened the book’s title in an untoward manner. However, that abbreviation is,

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I think for several reasons, not entirely misleading. [1] Significant amounts of the everyday musical fare of individuals in many parts of the world in the late twentieth century was of Anglo-US origin.9 [2] My notion of everyday music is not stylistically restricted: I refer not only to The Beatles but also to Bach and to popular music from the Balkans, Latin America, etc. [3] With substantial experience of non-anglophone cultures, I’m probably able to refer to more non-anglophone music than many other native speakers of my mother tongue.10 Here I have to include another caveat about this book’s content. It concerns the EVERYONE’S AN EXPERT AT SOMETHING syndrome. I mention this because students who are devotees of a particular artist, composer or musical style have sometimes been outraged by the fact that I didn’t include their area of expertise or objects of enthusiasm in my teaching, or that their musical interests were under-represented. Confronted like that in teaching situations, I would normally apologise and explain my choices while encouraging their enthusiasm and learning from their expertise. Since that sort of interaction is not viable in the author-reader relationship, I have to apologise in advance if you find my choice of material unsatisfactory. I can only suggest that you write me a short email suggesting improvements that come to mind.11 My only excuse for the omissions that may outrage you is that I’ve had to cover an extensive range of music and musicians in order to avoid the ethnocentric trap; and that meant investigating music about which I was previously less familiar. Indeed, I should clarify that before rewriting this book I knew precious little about, for example, Arab maqamat, Greek dromoi, Copland’s film music, flamenco, klezmer, the banjo, alternate guitar tunings or extreme metal, and 9.

i.e. music for films, teleproducts, video games, and for recordings in, or influenced by, jazz, blues, pop, rock and other related English-language styles. 10. Specialising in ‘popular music’, I have since 1971 taught music[ology] in tertiary education in Sweden, the UK and Francophone Canada. I have also since the 1980s had frequent contact with colleagues in Italy and Latin America. 11. To contact me, go to G tagg.org, click Contact under Personal, then, under Email, click to send me a short message.

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that I needed to improve on that ignorance to write anything at all coherent about, say, the phrygian mode or quartal harmony. Besides that, I felt obliged to try and transcribe relevant excerpts by artists like Sokratis Málamas, Ermálak, King Crimson, The Bothy Band and Joni Mitchell. The sounds I transcribed were always interesting (sometimes also moving) but the process of investigation and transcription was time-consuming. It’s in this light that I ask readers outraged by my omission of their favourite music to understand that I’ve done what I could to widen the repertoire I’ve qualified as ‘everyday’. Besides, I’m only one person and I haven’t had any Superman illusions since some time around 1962!

Basic structure and contents Rationale and reservations Apart from this preface and the various appendices, which I’ll explain shortly, this book consists of fifteen chapters, many of which deal with issues of harmony. That focus might seem odd, given that so many euroclassical scholars have already written so much about harmony. The trouble is that ‘harmony’ as an institutionalised body of learning in the West was often unable to help with the hands-on music analysis I had to do to make sense of my own ‘everyday tonality’: I just couldn’t apply its theoretical grids and taxonomies to a significant part of what I’ve played and heard in my life. I had to grapple with preconceived notions about harmonic impoverishment, with assumptions about unitonicality (that you can only have one keynote at a time), unidirectionality (that harmonic motion ‘normally’ proceeds anti-clockwise round the key clock), and with several value-laden and often misleading terms like ‘tonality’, ‘modality’, ‘dominant’, ‘subdominant’, ‘suspension’ and ‘perfect cadence’. Of course, those notions can work well if you want to examine the tonality of Mozart quartets, parlour song, Schlager or jazz standards, but they can be serious epistemic obstacles when dealing with La Bamba, Sweet Home Alabama, blues-based rock, folk rock, post-bop jazz, news jingles, Huayno, rebetiki, son, or a twelve-bar blues.

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New terms and compromise I’ve tried to include as much as possible of useful pre-existing ideas when addressing the problems just mentioned, for example Carlos Vega’s concept of bimodality (1944), Allan Moore’s useful lists of harmonic departures in rock and pop (1992), Esa Lilja’s theory of power chords (2009), etc. Even so, I’ve had to introduce home-grown terms and ideas in efforts to make some theoretical sense of my ‘everyday tonality’. Those efforts inevitably led to neologisms like tertial12 (as opposed to quartal), counterpoise (tonal counterweight to a given tonic) and bimodal reversibility (tonal sequences in one mode which, when reversed, become sequences in another mode). All such terms, including those covered in Music’s Meanings (e.g. anaphone, genre synecdoche, episodic marker, diataxis, syncrisis, extensional, intensional and the extended present; see Tagg, 2013) are explained at relevant points in this book and/or given a short definition in its Glossary. Despite valiant attempts to fuse useful pre-existing ideas with my own observations, I regret that much remains to be done before a comprehensive theory of ‘everyday tonality’ can be produced. Readers are therefore asked to take this book as ‘work in progress’ that I hope others, reacting to its probable inconsistencies and definite lacunae, will be able to improve on. 12. I introduced TERTIAL into my teaching around 1997 and have been using it ever since. It featured in materials about harmony that I put on line in 1999 and which eventually became the harmony article in EPMOW (Tagg, 2002). In 2010 I was pleased to discover that others had seen the need to designate chords characterised by the stacking of thirds, but was taken aback to see they’d adopted the word ‘tertian’ (sic) to do the job. Why choose the -an suffix when the -al in QUARTAL (not ‘quartan’!) already existed as the qualifier of chords based on stacked fourths. Adjectives ending in -tian or -cian are either geo-ethnic —Alsatian, Croatian, Grecian, Haïtian, Phoenician, Venetian etc.— or qualify belief systems —Christian, Confucian, etc; -[i]al endings send no such signals! There’s a clear difference between martial law or martial arts on the one hand and Martian law or Martian arts on the other. Besides, businesses are commercial, not ‘commercian’ and most grown-ups have facial, not ‘facian’, hair.

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Restriction of subject area I’ve also had to restrict, for reasons of space and clarity, the tonal areas I deal with, especially concerning questions of harmony. I chose to omit discussion of medium- and long-term tonal narrative (diataxis) and to concentrate on harmonic processes containable within the extended present (syncrisis), more particularly on ‘one-chord changes’, chord shuttles (two chords) and chord loops (three or four).13 There are three other reasons for this focus on ‘now sound’. [1] Since these phenomena are, thanks to their alleged harmonic simplicity, unlikely to provoke much interest among conventionally trained musos, they’re in greater need of theorisation. [2] Since the same phenomena are widely diffused, their popularity may become less puzzling if they are viewed from a less conventional musicological angle. [3] Since shuttles and loops are phenomena relating to the extended present, they highlight short-term tonal processes less commonly studied in conventional music scholarship. Theorising these issues of intensional structuration (Chester 1970; Glossary p.490) brings to light structural detail of importance in the understanding of ‘groove’ and in the identification of units of musical meaning (museme stacks; Glossary, p. 494). Now, this sort of attention to intensional detail is, I believe, necessary but it does mean that I’ve not been able to pursue my main musicological interest (semiotic music analysis) because —and it’s a vicious circle— I think that better structural theory relevant to the issue needs to be developed. I admit lapsing into semiotic mode on several occasions but I’ve exercised some restraint and tried to focus otherwise on structural theory.14 This focus means that I’ve been unable to consider in any detail longer durational units (MATRICES; see Glossary, p. 492) like the 12bar blues, the 32-bar jazz standard, or even the 8- and 16-bar tonal units so common in popular music. I also had to abandon my original rash idea to include an overview of what is probably the most 13. For a discussion of diataxis and syncrisis, see Chapters 11 and 12 in Music’s Meanings (Tagg, 2013). 14. I tried to confront semiotic issues in Music’s Meanings (Tagg, 2013).

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widely heard source of everyday tonality: film, TV and games music. Finally, I’ve not been able to include discussion of the CONJUNCT-LINE TROPES (Glossary, p. 481) at the basis of many popular chord sequences; I’m afraid I have to postpone that topic for another publication. All these omissions are in my view regrettable and unsatisfactory but I hope readers will agree with 10cc (1975) that ‘4% of something’s better than 10% of nothing’. Surprising discoveries When rewriting this book I came across a lot of music I’d either never heard before or which I’d forgotten from way back when. Most of this music never made it into the book but it kept me busy and was always interesting. Here are some more personal surprises that may (or may not) be of interest. • I found next to no systematic theory of hexatonic modes, even though the basically doh-hexatonic tune It’s Not Unusual (Tom Jones, 1965) is itself decidedly not unusual. • Since Bartók is one of my favourite composers, I was delighted to find out how many celebrated jazz and prog musicians were also fans of his work. • I was surprised to discover and saddened to realise how conservative jazz theory can be in its terminology, and how much it seems stuck in the time warp of bebop and II-V-I thinking. • I was gobsmacked to discover how conservative, ethnocentric and notation-fixated music theory teaching can still be.15

Overview of chapters Chapter 1 (pp. 43-62). There is much confusion about very basic terms in music theory. NOTE, PITCH and TONE are three of them. This chapter discusses and defines those terms. Extra attention is paid to cleaning up the conceptual chaos of the words TONAL and TONALITY as they are used in conventional Western music theory. 15. I even heard of students chided for referring to the phrygian minor second in E as $Ê (‘flat two’) because f@ (flat two in E) has no ‘$’ when notated! See Troubles with Tonal Terminology (Tagg, 2013b:) for more.

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CHAPTER 2 (pp. 63-82) continues with notions of PITCH, focussing on questions of TUNING and the OCTAVE. This chapter is the most acoustic-physics-orientated of them all and provides a theoretical basis for understanding how tones (as in ‘tonality’) work. CHAPTER 3 —HEPTATONIC MODES (pp. 83-147)— is the first of two about the mainly melodic aspect of modes. It starts with a definition of MODE, raises the issue of IONIANISATION, critiques conventional notions of MODALITY and explains why 7 is such a ‘magic number’ in modal theory. The first half of the chapter is then entirely devoted to the heptatonic ‘church’ modes and includes numerous music examples, as well as a critique of the major-minor ‘happy-sad’ dualism. The second half deals with non-diatonic heptatonic modes, in particular those containing FLAT TWO and/or an augmented second. Some rudiments of MAQAM theory, including the theoretical centrality of tetrachords, are presented as useful tools in the understanding of modal richness outside the euroclassical, jazz and related repertoires. There is particular focus on the PHRYGIAN and HIJAZ modes in flamenco and Balkan music, as well as on ‘Bartók’ modes, including the lydian flat seven and its similarity to blues modes. The chapter concludes with a 14-point summary and a short ‘WHAT-IF?’ thought experiment. CHAPTER 4 (pp. 149-176) is about NON-HEPTATONIC MODES. After a short section on tri- and tetratonic melody, the widespread practice of PENTATONICISM, especially its anhemitonic variants, is discussed in some detail. This section also explains the workings of the dohand la-pentatonic BLUES MODES. A systematic theory of tonical HEXATONIC MODES comes next, followed by an overview of nontonical hexatonic modes (whole-tone and octatonic). The chapter ends with reflexions on the perception of modes. CHAPTER 5 (pp. 177-201) is on MELODY. After an exposition of its defining characteristics, melody is presented according to two typologies, one based on contour (patterns of up and down), the other on connotation. Melodic identity is discussed in terms of tonal vocabulary, bodily movement, spoken language, varying patterns of repetition and, using concepts from rhetoric, its varying modes of presentation. The chapter ends with brief section on melisma.

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CHAPTER 6 (pp. 203-215) is a short chapter on POLYPHONY. It starts by trying to clear up the conceptual mess in conventional Western music theory about what polyphony actually means. After that, various categories of polyphony are defined and explained, including drone-accompanied music, heterophony, homophony and counterpoint. CHAPTER 7 (pp. 217-242) is called ‘CHORDS’. After the customary definition section, this chapter enumerates, describes and explains how a wide variety of tertial chords can be referred to in two complementary and useful ways: ROMAN NUMERAL designation and LEAD-SHEET CHORD shorthand. The chapter includes several extensive tables, including: [1] a table of all roman-numeral triads in all ‘church’ modes; [2] a chord recognition chart and a key to over fifty lead-sheet chords, all with the same root note. The principles of both roman-numeral and lead-sheet chord designation are explained in detail, complete with anomalies and exceptions. CHAPTER 8 (pp. 243-269) is the first of several on HARMONY. A brief definition and history of the concept is followed by a presentation of (European) ‘CLASSICAL HARMONY’. After tidying up another conceptual mess relating to notions like ‘functional’ and ‘triadic’, the essential term TERTIAL is introduced. The basic rules and mechanisms of classical harmony, central to many popular styles, are also presented. Furthermore, the chapter addresses notions of harmonic directionality, as well as the principles of the circle of fifths or ‘key clock’. CHAPTER 9 (pp. 271-290) is about NON-CLASSICAL TERTIAL HARMONY, i.e. third-based harmony that does not follow the euroclassical harmony rule book. After a discussion of non-classical ionian harmony, it explains things like the importance of major common triads in establishing the identity of the ‘church modes’, the option of permanent Picardy thirds in the tonic triad of minor-key modes, and the link between la-pentatonics and dorian rock harmony. There’s also a useful chart of typical progressions in each mode and of some well-known recordings in which they occur. CHAPTER 10 (pp. 291-349) is devoted entirely to QUARTAL HARMONY. After initial definitions it sets out the basics of quartal triads, how they can be designated and how they differ from tertial triads. The notion of TONICAL NEIGHBOURHOOD is introduced as a way of un-

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derstanding the relatively fluid tonal centrality of quartal harmony and how that fluidity can be used to generate harmonic movement. The blurring of borders between quartal and tertial harmony as more fourths are added to quartal chords is used as a way of understanding chords of the eleventh and their importance in North American music. Distinction is made between quartal harmony and the quartal voicings of postwar jazz. Numerous examples illustrate instances of quartal everyday tonality, from Bartók to banjo tuning, from Debussy to Stravinsky to corporate jingles, from McCoy Tyner to Joni Mitchell and King Crimson, etc. The chapter ends with demonstrations of the link between droned accompaniment patterns and quartal harmony, plus an 18-point summary of the chapter’s main ideas. CHAPTER 11 (pp. 351-367) is called ONE-CHORD CHANGES because it shows how one single chord is, in many types of popular music, rarely just one chord. After refuting prejudices about harmonic impoverishment in popular music and describing the theoretical rudiments of the extended present, one single common chord —G major— is examined in sixteen different popular recordings and found to consist of between two and four chords on each occasion. I argue that the tonal elaboration of ‘single’ chords is an intrinsic part of the musician’s aural work and essential to the ‘groove’ identifying both a particular piece and a particular style. CHAPTER 12 —‘CHORD SHUTTLES’ (pp. 369-398)— increases the number of chords from one to two. Drawing mainly on Englishlanguage popular song, a TYPOLOGY OF CHORD SHUTTLES is presented (supertonic, dorian, plagal, quintal, submediantal, aeolian and subtonic). Examination of shuttles in several songs, including a track from Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and the Human League hit Don’t You Want Me Baby (1981), shows that chord shuttles often involve ambiguous tonics and that no overriding keynotes can be established. I argue that chord shuttles are dynamic ongoing tonal states, not narrative processes. They are by definition non-transitional and constitute building blocks in the harmonic construction of diataxis in many types of popular song.

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CHAPTER 13 — CHORD LOOPS 1 (pp. 399-418)— expands the number of chords from two to three and four. After defining LOOP, the VAMP, one of the most famous loops in anglophone popular song, is examined. Distinction is made between loop and turnaround. The chapter ends with an explanation of the gradual but radical historical shift from the vamp’s V-I directionality to other, less ionian, types of harmony in rock-, soul- and folk-influenced styles. CHAPTER 14 — CHORD LOOPS AND BIMODALITY (pp. 419-448)— attacks the problem of understanding how non-classical tertial harmony works, with how the same chord sequence can be heard in two different modes, etc. Starting with distinction and confusion between ionian and mixolydian, this chapter sets out ways of establishing, where relevant, a single tonic for particular sequences, the role of individual chords within loops, etc. It then examines aeolian and phrygian loops, and proposes a model of BIMODAL REVERSIBILITY in efforts to conceptualise harmonic practices quite foreign to what is generally taught to music theory students. The chapter’s final section distinguishes between various mediantal loops like the ‘rock dorian’, the ‘folk dorian’, the ‘narrative ionian mediantal’. CHAPTER 15 —THE YES WE CAN CHORDS (pp. 449-476)— focuses on the chord loop used in the online video supporting Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. It discusses the connotative value of the loop and its contribution to creating the sort of cross-cultural unity that the Obama campaign wanted to forge. The main point is that analysing music’s tonal parameters should not be an arcane technical exercise foisted on music students but instead a contribution to answering the basic question of music semiotics: ‘why and how does who communicate what to whom and with what effect?’.

Appendices Glossary The GLOSSARY (pp. 477-502) includes explanations of abbreviations and definitions of terms whose meaning may need clarification. The definitions often refer to pages in the main text for a more detailed explanation. It also contains a few substantial entries that should have been footnotes but did not fit on the relevant page.

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Reference appendix To save space and to avoid confusion about which appendix to consult when checking source references, this book has only ONE REFERENCE APPENDIX (p. 503, ff). Reasons for including ‘everything’ in one appendix are given in Guidelines for Producing a Reference Appendix for Studies of Music in the 21st Century (G tagg.org/xpdfs/RefAppxs.pdf). That document also explains the referencing system used in this book. Internet references To save space in the Reference Appendix and footnotes, URLs are shortened by replacing the internet address prefixes http://, https://, http://www. etc. with the download icon G. Dates of access to internet sites are six-digit strings inside square brackets. Thus, ‘G tagg.org [150704]’ means a visit to http://www.tagg.org on the 4th of July, 2015. YouTube references are reduced in length from 42 to 13 characters by using the 11-character code appearing in their absolute URL addresses, preceded by the YouTube icon E. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch-v=msM28q6MyfY (42 chars.) becomes just ‘E msM28q6MyfY’.16 Index section The INDEX SECTION consists of: [1] an ALPHABETICAL INDEX (p. 559); [2] NUMERICAL INDEXES listing: [a] scale-degree sequences (‘$Ê Â’, ‘î $ê $â Û’, etc., p. 594); [b] chord abbreviations (e.g. ‘Á’, ‘m7L5’, p. 596); [c] chord sequences (‘I-vi-ii/IV-V’, ‘$VII-IV-I’, etc., p. 597). The ALPHABETICAL INDEX gives page references to all proper names appearing in the book, and to titles of musical works, songs, tracks, albums, films, TV productions, etc. It also includes page references to all major topics and concepts covered in the book’s preface, chapters and glossary. Footnote text is also included in the indexes. Symbols used in the indexes are explained on page 559. 16. If you copy the 11 characters of a unique YouTube file identity (e.g. msM28q6MyfY) and paste it into YouTube’s search box, you will be taken to that video and none other. You will not be told what else ‘you might enjoy’.

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Formal and practical Cross-referencing and order of topics Some parts of this book are based on encyclopædia articles. This means that insights readers might gain from those passages are more likely to derive from conceptual rather than perceptual learning. That in its turn requires quick access to the meaning of terms other than those under current discussion. That’s one reason why this book includes many internal cross-references. Another reason is that it’s impossible to introduce all terms and ideas in the right order for all readers. For example, although roman-numeral chord shorthand makes a short appearance on pages 34 and 70, it isn’t fully explained until page 218, in the chapter on chords. That will cause no problems for those familiar with the rudiments of conventional harmony but others may want to first read pages 218-223 and to consult Table 14 (p.220). Similarly, readers with no knowledge of lead-sheet chord shorthand (E7, F#m7L5 etc.) should perhaps read the relevant section (pp.227-242) if they have trouble following those symbols earlier in the book.

Musical source references Reference system Musical source references follow the same basic system as bibliographical source references. For example, ‘Beatles (1967b)’ refers uniquely to publishing details, located on page 509 in the Reference Appendix, for the Sergeant Pepper album. Sometimes it’s necessary to refer to a whole string of tunes in the text. For example, instead of writing ‘in tunes like Jingle Bells (Pierpoint, 1857), La Marseillaise (Rouget de Lisle, n.d.) and Satisfaction (Rolling Stones, 1965)’, I would tend to lighten up the text by just writing ‘in tunes like Jingle Bells, the Marseillaise and Satisfaction’. In such cases the title of each tune will be found, listed in alphabetical order, in the Reference Appendix, either complete or with at least cross-reference to the complete publishing details elsewhere in the appendix. Complete publishing details are provided so that readers will know, in cases where more than one recording exists of the

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same work, to which version I am referring. Such information is important when I provide timings pinpointing musical events within recorded works. Accessing and using musical sources Online recordings The majority of musical works referred to have at one time or another been published as recordings. In the early 1990s it would have been absurd to expect readers to have access to more than a very small proportion of those recordings. Today, however, it is usually a simple matter. Fearing prosecution for inducement to illegal acts, I can’t be more precise here than to say that you can hear online recordings of the majority of music I refer to in this book. For example, using Google to search for |Police "Don’t Stand So Close To Me"| (with the inverted commas) produced 3,180,000 hyperlinks [2014-08-05], several of which took me to actual online recordings of the original issue of Don’t Stand So Close To Me (Police, 1980). Using the on-screen digital timer provided by the site hosting the recording, I was able to pinpoint the song’s change from the E$\Gm to the D\A shuttle at 1:48. The whole process of checking a precise musical event in just one of innumerable songs took me a few seconds. Of course, it should be remembered that while it is not illegal to listen to music posted on the internet, downloading copyrighted music without payment or permission may well be.17 I’ve checked many of the recordings referred to in the book to see if they could be heard online. Some I didn’t check at all because I’m certain they’d be easy to find but others I had to put online myself. These ‘others’ include: [1] short extracts from recordings under copyright that seemed to be unavailable on line; [2] rudimentary audio recordings I produced using my own equipment to illustrate particular points discussed in the text. All these ‘other examples’ can be accessed via my website at G |tagg.org|. Click Audio, bottom right under ‘Audiovisual’, then Music examples in “Everyday Tonal17. Thanks to Bob Clarida for clarifying these simple legal points. Clarida is media and copyright attorney at Reitler, Kailas & Rosenblatt (New York) and co-author of Ten Little Title Tunes (Tagg & Clarida, 2003).

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ity”. Then you’ll see a list of the relevant audio examples on my site. Click on the relevant title to hear the example you need (mostly in MP3 format, a few as MIDI files). If you object to any posting on grounds of copyright ownership, please contact me and I will remove the offending item or contact my lawyer for advice.18 Online notation In order to minimise hard-copy production costs, music examples appear in pocket-score size on the page. The image resolution of notation images is mostly 300 d.p.i and the maximum width of the printed page is 10.3 cm, allowing for an image width of 1220 pixels. Some readers may find the miniature-score format problematic. If so, almost every music example in this book can be viewed at, or downloaded full-size from, Gtagg.org/pix/MusExx/MusExxIdx.htm. If you’re reading this electronically you can of course just use your device’s zoom function to make the notation larger. ‘Cit. mem.’ Some notated music examples are marked ‘cit. mem.’, meaning that they are cited from (my) memory. I use cit. mem. if no single definitive, authoritative or original recording of the piece exists, and if my own memory does not diverge too radically from the essence of how others hear it.

Tonal denotation As mentioned briefly on page 14, the ‘everyday tonality’ of this book covers a much wider range of tonal practices than those normally considered in standard Western music theory. The problem is that terms and concepts developed to denote and explain the tonal workings of the euroclassical repertoire cannot realistically be expected to do the same for all other types of tonality. To claim otherwise would be like insisting that concepts developed to explain rules of the English language automatically apply to, say, Chinese or Finnish. The obvious consequence for this book is that 18. You can contact me by visiting G|tagg.org and clicking ‘Contact’ under ‘Personal’. My copyright lawyer is Bob Clarida (see footnote 17).

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conventions of tonal denotation cannot only be those of standard Western music theory. It means that some of that theory’s terminology needs adaptation or redefinition, while some is best avoided altogether. It also means that I have to introduce terms and abbreviations unfamiliar to those raised on Schenker, Riemann or their acolytes.19 This section of the Preface does little more than summarise, with minimal discussion, the basic conventions of tonal denotation and abbreviation in this book. Note names To distinguish between, for example, E as the note E, E as leadsheet chord shorthand for a tertial major triad with the note E as its root, and E as the key or mode in which the note E is tonic, the following typographical conventions are used. For extra clarity a natural sign (@) is sometimes added after a note name, e.g. ‘a@, f@, b@’ instead of just ‘a, f, b’. Table 1. Basic typographical conventions for pitch-specific note and chord names Denotation type note lead-sheet chord key (Tonart)

Symbol

Typography

Example

e E E

lower-case sans-serif

e is a major third above c … from B7 to E… …is a V-I cadence in E.

upper-case sans-serif upper-case serif

Names of OPEN STRINGS are given according to instrumental convention, e.g. EADGBE for standard guitar tuning and DADGAD for DADGAD, g'dgbd' for banjo open G tuning, etc. Please note that TONIC SOL-FA NOTE NAMES (doh ré mi fa sol la ti) are, according to anglophone convention, relative or movable, e.g. ‘Doh=B$’, ‘Doh=E’, ‘ré-pentatonic mode in G’.20 Roman-letter note names (e.g. a b$ b@ c# d e f# g) designate pitch in absolute (fixed) terms. For further explanation see p. 43, ff. 19. See authoritative Wikipedia entries for ‘Heinrich Schenker’ and ‘Hugo Riemann’. See also ftnt. 25, p. 33, for influential Schenkerian Felix Salzer. 20. RÉ is used in preference to RE so as to avoid eventual misreadings involving the common prefix RE —repentant, re-pentatonic, repetitive, re-mode, remodel, etc.

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Scale degrees, scale steps and intervals When dealing with tonality inside and outside the euroclassical sphere of tertial-ionian, major-minor music, comparison of tonal vocabulary is an absolute necessity. Such comparison involves reasoning based on the placement of SCALE DEGREES within the octave, which, in its turn, requires a concise way of referring relatively to notes and chords. (See also INTERVALS, p. 32 and Table 5, p. 68). As shown in the left column of Table 2 (p. 31), the heptatonic SCALE can be expressed as simple arabic numerals topped with a circumflex accent —Â Ê Î Ô Û â ê [î=Â]. Scale-degree numbering requires the identification of a tonic (keynote) as scale degree 1 —’Â’. Since pitch differences between  and the other six scale degrees (Ê Î Ô Û â ê) are variable (see Table 2, p. 31; Fig.16, p. 95), scale degree numbering follows the following conventions (§§ 1-7).

DEGREES OF INDIVIDUAL NOTES

[1] Minor and major scale degrees. Î, â and ê are the most frequently varied scale degrees in the ‘everyday tonality’ covered in this book. To avoid ambiguity and to save space, scale degrees on the minor third, sixth and seventh are preceded by ‘$’ ($3, $â, $ê), those on the major third, sixth and seventh by ‘^’ (^Î, ^â, ^ê).21 [2] Since Ê is less prone than Î, â and ê to variation, the scale degree on the major second is usually indicated by a simple ‘Ê’, without the qualifier ‘^’, while ‘$Ê’ designates a scale degree on the minor second (‘flat two’). [3] ‘Perfect’ scale degrees. Ô, Û and î indicate, without qualification, scale degrees on the perfect fourth, fifth and octave respectively. [4] Diminished and augmented scale degrees. ‘$’ is used to indicate a diminished and ‘#’ an augmented interval. For example, #Ô (‘sharp four’) is a scale degree on the augmented fourth, $Û (‘flat five’) on 21. ‘^’ stands for major, in line with the conventions of lead-sheet chord shorthand where, for example, C^7 indicates the C major seven chord (also abbreviated C^, or CM7 or CM; see pp. 230-235). ‘#’ qualifies only scale-degrees on augmented intervals (e.g. d# as #Ê in C; see §4).

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the diminished fifth. ‘#Ê’ (augmented second) is also used; for example, in the key of C (Â), d# is #Ê, d@ is Ê (or ^Ê) and d$ is $Ê. Table 2. Scale degree abbreviations with c and e[@] as tonic (Â).22 SCALE DEGREE nº

Â=c

note name

Scale degree

TERTIAL COMMON TRIAD

Â=e

Â=c nº

Â=e

Â=c

MAJOR

nº

Â=e

MINOR

ñas spokenñ popularly

$Ê Ê or ^Ê #Ê

d$ d@ d#

f@ f# f!

$II II

D$ D

F F#

$ii ii

C#m Dm

Fm F#m

‘flat two’ ‘[major] two’ ‘sharp two’

$Î ^Î

e$ e@

g@ g#

$III III

E$ E

G G

$iii iii

E$m Em

Gm G#m

‘flat three’ ‘major three’

Ô #Ô

f f#

a a#

IV #IV

F F#

A A#

iv #iv

Fm F#m

Am B$m

‘four’ ‘sharp four’

$Û Û #5

g$ g@ g#

b$ b@ b#

$V V

G$ G

B$ B

$iv v

F#m Gm

B$m Bm

‘flat five’ ‘five’ ´sharp five’

$â ^â

a$ a@

c@ c#

$VI VI

A$ A

C C#

$vi vi

A$m Am

Cm C#m

‘flat six’ ‘major six’

$ê ^ê

b$ b@

d@ d#

$VII VII

B$ B

D D#

$vii vii

B$m Bm

Dm ‘flat seven’ D#m ‘major seven’

[5] Microtonal scale degrees. ‘W’ indicates that the designated scale degree is pitched ONE QUARTER TONE BELOW its value in the ionian mode, as in the ‘neutral’ blues third (§Î), or as in maqam Rast (ascends Â Ê §Î Ô Û §â §ê). [6] Unqualified scale degree numbers. The circumflexed numeral without symbol prefix refers to either [1] a GENERIC HEPTATONIC SCALE DEGREE —for example a ‘Î’ that could be ^Î, $Î, WÎ or #Η or [2] a scale degree number requiring no qualification (e.g. perfect fourth, fifth and octave, as well as major second (Ô, Û, î, Ê, see =§§2-3). 22. Please note that many of the tertial common triads in this table contain notes outside the euroclassical keys of C and E major and minor, e.g. $II contains two notes foreign to the ionian or ‘major key’ ($Ê, $â), and $ii contains two foreign to the euroclassical ‘minor key’ ($Ê, $Ô). On the other hand, $II is the fully compatible common triad on $Ê in the phrygian and Hijaz modes.

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[7] If preceded by the expression ‘scale degree’, or if the context is otherwise unambiguous, the scale degree[s] in question may lack the circumflex. ‘Scale degrees 1 $2 ^3’ (e.g. c d$ e@ in Hijaz C) is in other words the same as just ‘Â $Ê ^Î’. The latter is simply shorter.23

SCALE STEPS, the intervals between adjacent scalar notes in a mode, are expressed in tones: ‘¼’ means a quarter-tone, ‘½’ a semitone, ‘¾’ three quarters of a tone, ‘1’ a whole tone (literally 1 tone), and either ‘1½’ —one-and-a-half tones— or ‘¥’ —three semitones—, i.e. an augmented second or minor third.24 INTERVALS (differences of pitch), are mainly designated as ordinals, qualified where necessary, for example second, third, minor third, augmented fourth, diminished fifth, octave. Intervals and scale degrees specific to the euroclassical and related tonal idioms are sometimes referred to using the vocabulary of conventional Western music theory (supertonic, mediant, etc.). Those labels and their equivalents as numeric scale degrees are set out in Table 5 on page 68.

Octave designation and register When referring to REGISTER it is sometimes necessary to indicate in which octave notes are pitched. In such cases I’ve used the MIDI convention of numbering octaves from a0 at the bottom of an 88note piano keyboard (27.5 Hz) to cw (4186 Hz) (see p.66,ff.). Octave numerals are subscripted to avoid confusion with the superscripted characters used in chord shorthand, footnote flags, etc.).

23. Fonts used here are downloadable at G tagg.org/zmisc/FontKeys.html [140308]. 24. The use of ½, 1, 1½, etc. replaces three other conventions: [1] T = tone, S = semitone; [2] W = whole tone, H = half tone; [3] ‘1’ = semitone, ‘2’ = whole tone, ‘3’ = three semitones. [3] is not as anglocentric as alternatives [1] or [2], but it is counterintuitive to equate a half-tone (½, semi, 50%) with the integer 1 and a whole-tone (1 tone) with 2 (×2, 200% of 1). Besides, ‘½’ is available on computer keyboards (Unicode U+00bd, ASCII 171). For more information, see G tagg.org/zmisc/FontKeys.html [140906].

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Scale degree chord shorthand SCALE DEGREE CHORD SHORTHAND (ROMAN NUMERALS) follows principles similar to those used for scale degrees (p. 30, ff.). As will become evident, concepts like ‘dominant’, ‘subdominant’, ‘perfect cadence’, ‘functional harmony’, etc. are irrelevant to much of what most people hear on a daily basis. That’s why Salzer’s euroclassically focussed Structural Hearing (1952) is absent from this book. Nor are readers forced to endure hieroglyphics like ‘Sp’, ‘Dp’ or ‘DDY9’.25 Nevertheless, the roman-numeral denotation of chords is used extensively (see Table 2, p. 31 and §3, below).

Chords Three systems are used for the concise denotation of chords: [1] lead-sheet shorthand, [2] quartal chord designation and [3] the roman numeral system. 1. Lead-sheet chord shorthand A LEAD SHEET is a piece of paper displaying the basic information necessary for performance of a piece of Western popular music (see pp. 227-228). LEAD-SHEET CHORD SHORTHAND is the system of chord symbols used on lead sheets. Lead-sheet chord shorthand for TERTIAL HARMONY (A, Bm7$5, E$m^9, etc.) is explained in detail in Chapter 7 (pp. 227-242) and presented in tabular form on pages 230-231. For QUARTAL CHORD SHORTHAND, see chapter 10.

All chord symbol root names are in sans-serif capitals while names of keys (tonalité, Tonart) are, as shown in Table 1 (p. 29), in upper25. Felix Salzer is largely responsible for establishing the teachings of Austrian musicologist Heinrich Schenker (d. 1935) in the USA where it is still an obligatory part of ‘music theory’ in the academy. It can be useful for understanding structural narrative in a Mozart symphony but is quite useless if you want to know how the tonalities of rebetiko or redneck rock (and countless other noneuroclassical idioms) work. At the Göteborg (Sweden) College of Music (Musikhögskolan, 1971-91), I had to teach harmony from a Riemann-inspired manual (Söderholm, 1959) in which ‘Sp’ and ‘Dp’ were abbreviations of ‘Subdominant’ and ‘Dominant Parallel’ respectively (e.g. Dm as Sp and Em as Dp in C). ‘DDY9’ was the book’s weirdest hieroglyphic: it was a ‘double dominant’ minor ninth chord with its root note deleted, for example, in C, the notes d f# a c e$ (without the d), i.e. a bog-standard F#J (#iv°7).

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case serif, for example, [1] ‘Mozart’s Symphony nº 41 is in C: its final chord is C’; [2] ‘the vocal line of Steeleye Span’s 1970 recording of The Lowlands Of Holland (ex. 84, p. 155) starts on a g# and is in lahexatonic C#: its final chord is C#2’. 2. Quartal chord designation symbols QUARTAL CHORD DESIGNATION symbols (CÁ, F4, B$2, etc.) are explained separately in Chapter 10 (p. 292, ff; p. 300, ff.).

3. Roman-numeral chord shorthand The ROMAN-NUMERAL CHORD SHORTHAND system is explained in Chapter 7 (pp. 218-223) and set out in Table 14 (p. 221). A ‘HEWNIN-STONE’ font is used to make these chord symbols easier to spot in the text, even if there’s little visual difference between ‘I’ (me) and ‘I’ (roman nº 1). Unlike lead-sheet chord shorthand, but like scale-degree abbreviations, ROMAN-NUMERAL CHORD DESIGNATION IS RELATIVE, in that each roman number designates, in any key or mode, THE SCALE DEGREE ON WHICH THE CHORD IS BUILT (see Table 2, p. 31). The superscripted arabic numerals indicate alterations to the basic tertial common triad built on that scale degree, for example: I (contains Â^Î-Û), I7 (Â-^Î-Û-$7), iiéíÚ (Ê-Ô-$â-î), $III5 ($3-$ê), IVå (Ô-^â-î-ô), Vä (Û-^î-Ñ^Î), V7 (Û-^ê-ô-ÑÔ), $VI ($â-î=kÂ-k$Î). • LOWER-CASE ROMAN NUMBERS indicate a MINOR COMMON TRIAD. For example, ii in C, as a minor triad based on the second degree (on Ê), is a D minor triad (‘Dm’, containing d-f@-a). • UPPER-CASE ROMAN NUMERALS indicate either a MAJOR COMMON TRIAD or a POWER CHORD. For example, V in C, as a major triad on Û, is a simple ‘G’, containing g-b@-d, while, still with C as tonic, $III5, as a chord based on the flat third scale degree ($Î), is the dyad E$5, containing e$ and b$. • I, ii, iii, etc. DESIGNATE CHORDS ON THE SCALE-DEGREE POSITIONS of Western music theory’s DEFAULT MODE —the IONIAN. • Chords based on ANY SCALE DEGREE OTHER THAN THOSE INTRINSIC TO THE IONIAN MODE MUST BE PRECEDED BY THE REQUISITE

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ACCIDENTAL, almost always ‘$’, for example $VI-$VII-I/i (aeolian cadence) or $II-I/i (or $vii-I/i) (phrygian cadence).26

An aside about the ionian as default mode Euroclassical music theory’s preoccupation with the ionian is historically explicable but hardly logical. Taking the seven white notes of a piano keyboard octave —c d e f g a b— and re-arranging them in clockwise order round the circle of fifths —f c g d a e b—, it’s clear that the two extremes are separated inside the octave by a tritone (f@-b@) and, more importantly, that c is situated next to the left-hand extreme (f c g d a e b), not in the central position occupied by d (f c g d a e b). With the dorian D-mode as default for the scale-degree and roman-numeral shorthand systems, there would have been three modes sharpwards (aeolian, phrygian, locrian) and three flatwards (mixolydian, ionian, lydian); and the assignment of apposite accidentals would have been more equitable.27

Music examples (notated) This book contains hundreds of notated music examples and figures containing musical notation. As explained earlier, many music examples cited as notation in this book can also be both heard as audio and viewed in better resolution on line (see p. 27). I’m not a guitarist. Sometimes I transcribe as a typical keyboard player. I apologise if my voicings of guitar chords are wrong. However, guitarists Diego García Peinazo, Jacopo Conti and Franco Fabbri have helped with the transcription of several guitar-based examples.28 26. Unlike scale-degree symbols ($Î, ^Î, etc.), roman-number chord shorthand does not use ‘^’ to indicate chords built on major scale degrees. For example, ‘III’ or ‘iii’ always indicates a common triad based on ^Î. 27. It would also have aligned with notions of modus protus plagalis or authenticus. This historical anomaly may explain the proliferation of $s and the paucity of #s (or ^, +, etc.) in front of roman-numeral chord designations but it doesn’t explain why Western music theory became so ionianised in the first place. 28. Drumkit parts are not included in this book about tonality.

36 8va and 15ma bassa

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Fig. 1. 8va bassa

The TENOR CLEF, familiar to guitarists, is a G clef (Ç) with an ‘8’ underneath. It’s USED FREQUENTLY in music examples covering the MID REGISTER. The idea is to save space, cut down on leger lines, and to avoid switching between G and F clefs. Please look for the little ‘8’ (8va bassa = octave below): the two notes shown in Figure 1 sound at exactly the same pitch.29 On a few occasions ‘15ma bassa’ is used to indicate notes sounded two octaves lower. Progressions and sections Note names or chord designations occurring in sequence are usually separated by HYPHENS or by a simple space (e.g. ‘d g f# a’ or ‘dg-f#-a’; ‘C Am F G’ or ‘D-Bm-G-A’; ‘I vi ii V’ or ‘I-vi-IV-V’). To highlight the unidirectional aspect of TONAL PROGRESSIONS, a rightpointing arrow is sometimes used, e.g. ‘ii?V?I’, ‘Gm7?C7?F’. A chord shuttle (oscillation between two chords) is indicated by a double-headed arrow, e.g. ‘i\IV’, ‘Gm7\C’. Chord loops —short repeated sequences of usually three or four chords— are delimited by arrows turning horizontally through 180° before and after the relevant sequence, e.g. ‘{I-vi-IV-V}’, ‘{F-Dm-B$-C}’. DIAGONAL ARROWS are used to indicate PITCH DIRECTION, e.g. the descending character of an Andalusian cadence iv>$III>$II>I. They are also used to distinguish between intervallic leaps like c@>e (a falling minor sixth) and c ? \ < > - < Ñ ñ ÀàÆæ Â Ê Î Ô Û â ê î ô, etc., % ^ M * J S U T O P Y y 1 ¹ o 2 É p È 3 Í q Ì L l H h N n, etc., Á Ã Ö þ ÿ À Ä q w r ß ä å Y Q ç æ ë õ ö Ë Õ Ü ã etc., 0 E D V G R r P p F f g H h lL C c v b m Y iy ● ▪ etc. You’ll also find a pho33. Both in-text references are intended to link to this same single footnote.

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netic font [f9U nEtIk] (used in Table 3, p. 37), as well as both a Cyrillic (Кириллица) and a Greek polytonic keyboard (ὁ ῥυθμός, ἡ ἁρμονἰα, ἡ ᾠδή, ἡ μελογρᾰφία) plus instructions for producing simplified Chinese characters, e.g. 中国音乐通 . You can also type Dvořák (real Czech name) rather than ‘Dvorak’ (anglocentric), leçon (decent) rather than ‘lecon’ (obscene), Ångström (real Swedish name) instead of ‘Angstrom’ (anglocentric), etc.

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Acknowledgements I’d like to thank Franco Fabbri (Milano) for having persuaded me to start on this book and for encouraging me in my struggle with it. He has helped on several occasions in preparing this edition with his guitar-playing skills, his knowledge of Richard Thompson’s œuvre and with general advice about what and what not to include. He and Bob Davis (Leeds) have been my main ‘go-to’ people whenever I got stuck or felt unsure if I was on the right track. I’m also indebted to Kaire Maimets (Tartu) for her critical reading of this edition, for her corrections and constructive suggestions, as well as for encouragement and moral support. Next I would also like to thank people in Montréal who took time to discuss ideas for the first edition — Simon Bertrand, Dylan KellKirkman, François de Médicis, Alison Notkin, Nic Thompson and Danick Trottier, not to mention my neighbour Mme Ouellet. Thanks also to Bob Clarida (New York) for musicological input and free legal advice; to Allan Moore (Guildford) for his Patterns of Harmony (1992), Esa Lilja (Helsinki) for his Theory and Analysis of Classic Heavy Metal Harmony (2009) and for his input about chord and scale-degree designation; to Fernando Barrera (Granada), Jacopo Conti (Torino) and Diego García Peinazo (Córdoba & Oviedo) for their constructive suggestions and help with some of the guitar transcriptions; to all my popular music analysis students in Göteborg, Liverpool and Montréal who over the years asked the sort of questions that provoked attempts to explain many of the issues addressed in this book; and, posthumously, to my two Swedish mentors, Jan Ling and Margit Kronberg without whose encouragement and guidance I doubt I would ever have dared undertake a project like this. Thanks for input and feedback in preparing this second edition go also to Markus Heuger (Cologne), Laura Jordán (Valparaíso), Aris Lanaridis (London), Chris McDonald (Cape Breton), David McGuinness (Glasgow), Simon McKerrell (Newcastle), Sue Miller (Leeds), Sarha Moore (Sheffield), Greg Simon (Phoenix), and to others (not too many, I hope) who I’ve inexcusably omitted to mention…

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FFBk01Tone.fm. 2017-03-10, 00:35

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1. Note, pitch, tone Many languages have no direct equivalent to the word MUSIC but no culture is without what we call ‘music’. In several European languages MUSIC, or its equivalent, seems to mean a form of interhuman communication based on non-verbal sound, a symbolic system often associated with other forms of communication like language, dance and drama.1 Since this book is about the tonal elements of everyday music and since tones are a particular subset of musical sounds, I’ll obviously need first to define tone and tonal but it’s difficult to do that without using two very basic musical terms: note and pitch.

Note When talking about music, note can mean three different things: 1. any single, minimal, discrete sound of finite duration in a piece of music; 2. such a sound with discernible fundamental pitch (p. 59,ff.); 3. the duration, relative to the music’s underlying pulse (tempo), of any such sound, pitched or unpitched. According to the third meaning, and as evidenced by German and North American uses of the word, note can refer solely to the relative duration of a minimal musical sound event, for example ganze Note or ‘whole note’ (s, semibreve, ronde, etc.), Viertel or ‘quarter note’ (l, crotchet, noire, etc.). This use of note in the sense of ‘note value’ —and with value in this sense relating only to duration— is of marginal interest to the definition of tone, so let’s concentrate on the first two meanings of note. Note in its musical sense originally referred to the scribal marking of a minimal element of articulation on the page, but the word has in English come to denote any discrete minimal sonic event in music without reference to lines, blobs or squiggles on paper. It is this meaning that is used in, for example, MIDI sequencing where a note 1.

For more about concepts of music, see Tagg (2013: 44-73).

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is identified by such factors as: [i] the points at which a given sound event will start and end in a piece of music; [ii] the type of sound (timbre, volume, attack, envelope, decay) that will occur at that point in time; [iii] (if the note is pitched) the frequency at which the sound will be articulated. Fig. 2. Sweet Home Alabama (intro extract): partial MIDI piano roll view (Lynyrd Skynyrd, 1974)

The horizontal aspect of Figure 1 shows some variation of note length in all parts except for the drumkit with its regular hi-hat, snare and kick drum hits. Little dots indicate not only those very brief events but also the very short anacrustic notes in the bass and piano parts. Small horizontal bars show the relative duration of normal-length notes. The pitch of each note is visualised vertically for all instruments except for the drumkit, each of whose constituent parts (hi-hat, snare, etc.) is assigned its own ‘pitch’ line with the bass drum at the bottom and cymbals plus hi-hat on top. Other encoded note information —volume, timbre, attack, envelope, decay, etc.— is not shown in MIDI piano roll screens. According to this, the first and most important meaning of the term, a NOTE is, as stated above, any single, discrete sound of finite duration within a musical continuum. It can have any timbre and it can be long, short, high, low, loud, soft, etc. However, although a note may theoretically have any duration, it is difficult to perceive as such if it sounds for less than about thirty milliseconds (y at q=120) or for more than about ten seconds (rs\s\s\s\s at q=120). This seems to be why certain types of ornamentation, which from a technical viewpoint involve more than one ‘note’, are generally

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perceived as single notes of a particular type (e.g. drum rolls, tremolandi, vibrati, fast trills), while extremely long notes are heard as pedals or drones. Similarly, every note played on a mandolin or twelve-string guitar consists strictly speaking of two ‘notes’ because each string pitch is doubled and because those two strings can never be in total unison. The same goes for several other instruments, including the French accordéon musette whose every note consists of two pitches very slightly out of tune with each other to create the instrument’s characteristic sound. In all these cases the STRICTLY SPEAKING TWO (OR MORE) PITCHES TO EACH NOTE phenomenon is intrinsic to the identity of the sound as a single entity and should in general be regarded as just one note.2 In any case that’s how musicians tend to treat those sounds and that’s how listeners identify them. Still, it’s really the second meaning of note that relates most directly to the subject of this book: —a discrete sound of finite duration… with easily discernible fundamental pitch.3

Pitch In acoustic terms, PITCH is that aspect of a sound which is determined by the rate of vibrations producing it and which can be denoted in acoustic terms as a frequency, for example ‘440 cycles per second’ or ‘440 Hertz’. 440 Hz also happens to be standard concert pitch in the West and is situated four octaves4 above the bottom note on most pianos (a = 27.5 Hz) and three octaves below the instrument’s highest a (3520 Hz). Words like ‘above’, ‘below’, ‘top’ and ‘bottom’, not to mention the French and German words for musical pitch (hauteur and Tonhöhe),5 all indicate that our cultures conceptualise pitch on a vertical axis covering the range of low, medium and high frequency sounds that humans can hear. This metaphor of vertical placement —high-frequency sounds on top, low-frequency sounds down below— is so strong that we use 2. 3. 4. 5.

Differences between tone and timbre are discussed on p.56,ff. The two main note-naming systems are explained on p.47,ff. Fundamental pitch is explained on pages 59-60. Octave: see Chapter 2, p.63,ff. French hauteur = lit. height; German Tonhöhe = lit. tone height.

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terms like ‘high e’ to designate the guitar string situated lowest in playing position and ‘low e’ when referring to what is visually the top string when making music on the guitar. This anomaly suggests that synaesthesis may be more important than visual observation in our spatial conceptualisation of pitch. High pitch is in general much more likely to be associated with light in both the ‘not dark’ and ‘not heavy’ senses of the word, not least because small gusts of wind can scatter feathers, leaves, plastic bags and other small, light objects, blowing them up into the air —towards the sky, the clouds and the sun— whereas heavy objects tend be larger, more difficult to move and therefore more likely to stay down on the ground, which is understandably imagined as darker and heavier than air. Indeed, not only do large heavy objects tend to need lots of energy —a tornado or vast amounts of jet fuel, for example— to get them off the ground; their very weight and inertia makes them appear less volatile and less mobile, more likely to be understood as heavy, dark and massive rather than quick, light and small.6 Besides —and with apologies for the tautology— babies and small children have smaller bodies and vocal equipment producing ‘higher’, ‘lighter’ sounds than grown-ups. The process whereby male voices break and descend an octave or so at adolescence further reinforces the synaesthetic patterning just described, as does the fact that singers tend to use the head register to produce high notes, the chest register for low ones. Moreover, you are much more likely to feel the vibrations of a loud bass instrument in the stomach whereas, for example, dissonant high-pitched sounds are often used in film music as a sort of sonic headache to accompany scenes of madness, relentless sunlight, etc. Whatever the reasons may be for spatially conceptualising pitch vertically rather than horizontally, it is clear that pitch, —low, medium or high— is, along with volume and timbre, an essential element allowing humans to distinguish between sounds, for example between a hi-hat and a big gong struck in the same way or 6.

In French, for example, high and low pitch are referred to as aigu (= ‘sharp’, ‘acute’) and grave (= ‘deep’, ‘solemn’) respectively.

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between the top notes of a piccolo and the lowest ones played on alto flute played at the same volume with the same sort of attack for the same duration. There’s an obvious problem at the end of the previous paragraph because the high or low pitch of flute notes is different from the high or low pitches of cymbals or gongs, even though the sound of a big gong contains a lot of low frequencies and the hi-hat sounds high. We’ll return to that contradiction at the start of the section Tone, tonal, tonality on page 49.

Tonal note names It’s impossible to explain concepts of tone and tonality without referring to notes by name. There are two basic ways of referring to those ‘single, discrete sounds of finite duration and with easily discernible fundamental pitch’: absolute or fixed and relative or movable. Fig. 3. Absolute (fixed) note names in English, French and German

Absolute note names in English and German occupy the first few letters of the alphabet. They usually designate notes of previously and unequivocally determined fundamental pitch, like the note a at 440 hz or c# at 554.37 hz.7 The Latin convention, exemplified by French names in Figure 3, and used in parts of Eastern Europe as well as throughout the Latin world, serves the same purpose but can cause confusion with the relative pitch names of TONIC SOL-FA 7.

Transposing instruments produce named notes at other pitches. For example, the three notes c-d-e played on a B$ trumpet sound b$-c-d in absolute terms, e$-f-g if played on an E$ saxophone, a-b-c# if played on a clarinet in A. Conversely, the same absolute note e is f# on B$ trumpet, c# on E$ saxophone, g on a clarinet in A and b@ on a horn in F. Fundamental pitch: see pp. 59-60.

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used to designate types of tonal material like the heptatonic la (aeolian) and doh (ionian) modes shown in Figure 4. The point is that la-modes do not have to be in A (French La) any more than a dohmode has to be in C (French Do), just because they are the two tonics on which those modes are constructed using only the white notes of a piano keyboard. For example, the lower half of Figure 4 shows la set to D (Ré) and doh to F (Fa). In fact, both modes can have any of the Western octave’s twelve tones as tonic (pp. 51, 91, ff.). Fig. 4. Absolute and relative note designation8

The problem with the Latin note-naming convention is in other words that it’s not instantly clear if, for example, la means La in absolute terms (e.g. a at 440 hz), or if it means la relatively, as in tonic sol-fa. If la is relative, it might be the note a as scale degree 6 (â) in C major, or as scale degree 1 (Â, the tonic) in A minor. La could also be f# (^â) in A major or the tonic (Â) in F# minor. To avoid such confusion I’ll stick to the English-language note-naming convention of using the first seven letters of the alphabet for absolute designation and use the tonic-solfa mainly to refer relatively to mode types like ‘ré-pentatonic’ (p. 154), ‘doh-sol hexatonic’ (p. 167), etc. The arabic numerals in Figure 4 are entirely relative once an agreed pitch is established as tonic (Â). They simply express the seven basic scale 8.

The top half of this example shows only simple heptatonic scale note names using only the white notes of a piano keyboard.

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degrees of any heptatonic mode, with the tonic as scale degree 1 (Â). The Northern Indian relative note names (sa ri ga ma pa dha ni) follow a similar principle to heptatonic scale-degree indications by number. Sa, like ‘one’, is always the keynote or tonic (Â), pa always the fifth degree (Û, ‘five’), whether or not the tonal material sounds to a Westerner like a minor (la), major (doh) or thirdless mode and no matter which fundamental frequency is assigned to doh or sa.

Tone, tonal, tonality On page 47 I raised the issue of difference between notions of pitch applied to the flute and those applied to the high pitch of a hi-hat and to the low pitch of a large gong. The difference is of course that flute notes, high or low, almost always have one clearly discernible fundamental pitch while, for example, hi-hat, snare drum and gong notes do not. It is this factor of discernible fundamental pitch that determines whether the note in question is a tone rather than just a note. TONE will therefore be used in this book to mean A NOTE OF DISCERNIBLE FUNDAMENTAL PITCH.9 Now, if you believe in absolute natural-science truths, you may dislike this definition because ‘discernible’ implies that, despite some grounding in acoustic physics (periodic versus. aperiodic sounds, etc.),10 awareness of fundamental pitch also relies on culturally acquired patterns of perception. That is certainly a correct observation but hardly a valid objection to the definition since music, even the concept itself, is, as intimated earlier, an intrinsically social and cultural phenomenon whose understanding de facto requires social and cultural consideration. A much more serious problem is caused by conflicting meanings of the adjective tonal and its abstract-noun derivative tonality. Tonal logically means relating to or having the character of a tone or of tones, as defined in the previous paragraph. However, in con9. Fundamental pitch is explained on pages 59-60. 10. Periodic sounds are those whose sound wave rates (pitch, cycles per second, Hertz, etc.) are steady and give rise to discernible fundamental pitch. Aperiodic sounds exhibit no such regularity and produce no discernible fundamental pitch. Differences between tone and timbre are explained on p.56,ff.

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ventional eurocentric music theory tonal is still often used in two ways that fly in the face of lexical logic and of cultural common sense. The first of these is the binary opposition between tonal and atonal, the second that between an implicit and self-proclaimed ‘tonality’ and music based on tonal principles other than those of no more than just one type of tonal music.

‘Tonal’ and ‘tonical’ The most obvious terminological anomaly in conventional music theory is probably the dichotomy TONAL versus ATONAL. Schönberg certainly objected to his music being labelled ‘atonal’ because his compositional norms were defined by tonal rules, by TWELVETONE (zwölfton) techniques. After all, neither he, nor Berg, nor Webern were famous for their use of atonal sounds (atonal in the logical sense of ‘no tones’).11 There just isn’t much hi-hat, snare drum or sampled traffic in their œuvre. It may seem bizarre, but euroclassical music theorists managed to confuse the notion of music containing no intended tonic, as in the work of twelve-tone composers, or in Herrmann’s music for the shower scene in Psycho (1960), with music containing no tones, as in, say, taiko drumming (e.g. Kodō, 1985) or in Herrmann’s cue for the scene ‘Crows attack the students’ in Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963). Using appropriate linguistic derivatives, there are at least two conceivable solutions to this confusion between tone and tonic: the ‘-AL, -ALITY, -ALIST’ and the ‘-IC, -ICAL’ patterns set out in Table 4. TONE, TONAL and TONALITY follow the linguistic logic of CENTRE CENTRAL - CENTRALITY and FORM - FORMAL - FORMALITY but, unlike those examples of that pattern, TONE has no adjective deriving from the abstract noun TONALITY. Unlike CENTRALIST or FORMALIST, TONALIST[IC] just doesn’t exist. If it did, it could qualify tonal music with a TONIC or TONAL CENTRE, while ‘non-tonalist’ or ‘atonalist’ could denote tonal music with none. However, apart from sound11. The ‘a’ prefix to ‘tonal’, as in atonal is an alpha privative (e.g. ahistorical = without history; amoral = with no morals. ‘Atonal’ logically means without tones and therefore without tonality, not tonal but devoid of a tonic.

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ing like the name of a political movement (’we tonalists will introduce free ringtone downloads after the next election’), NONTONALIST would imply that tonal music with no intended tonic had no tonality in the sense defined earlier, no system according to which tones were configured. Since that is patently untrue of twelve-tone music, whose tonal rules are clearly codified, the only logical solution is to use the second pattern of derivation to create an adjective ending in -AL on the basis of a noun ending in -IC. Table 4. Solutions to terminological confusion between tone and tonic Pattern 1: —, —al, —ality, —alist root noun centre form sense

adjective 1 central formal sensual

abstract noun centrality formality sensuality

adjective 2 centralist formalist sensualist

TONE

TONAL

TONALITY

¿TONALIST?

noun comic ethic[s] music polemic statistic[s]

Pattern 2: —ic, —ical adjective noun comical clinic ethical magic musical rhetoric polemical tropic[s] statistical TONIC

adjective clinical magical rhetorical tropical TONICAL

Pattern 2 in Table 4 suggests that, just as CLINICAL things happen in CLINICS, just as the weather is TROPICAL in the TROPICS, and just as RHETORICAL devices (like the ‘just as’ anaphora of this sentence) are used in RHETORIC, tonal music featuring a TONIC should be called TONICAL and tonal music that does not ATONICAL or NON-TONICAL. At least that rids us of the embarrassingly illogical use of ‘atonal’ and ‘atonality’. Here I need to underline that I’m not using TONIC in the restrictive sense of euroclassical music theory, where it implies the existence of a ‘dominant’ etc., but as simple shorthand for TONAL CENTRE, i.e. a central reference tone in any tonal idiom. The second item of terminological disorder in conventional European music theory about tonal and tonality isn’t just questionable: it’s also more insidious.

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‘Tonal’ and ‘modal’ Let me start with an analogy. I once overheard a French student on exchange at the Université de Montréal saying to one of her québécois classmates ‘Mais vous avez tous un accent ici’. I was struck by the chauvinism of her observation, not least because she was attending the oldest francophone university in the francophone world’s second largest city. It’s probably less surprising that, here in the UK, it was only a few decades ago that ‘talking with an accent’ (i.e. in any other way than that considered correct at ‘public’ (=private) schools or at Oxbridge) was considered acceptable for BBC announcers and newsreaders. The analogy between the notion of speaking ‘with an accent’ and making ‘modal music’ should be clear. According to such chauvinist thinking it matters not, so to speak, if more people ‘speak with an accent’ than use ‘received pronunciation’, or if they make music using tonal idioms that differ from those of the euroclassical or jazz canons. In both cases the former, usually practised by a majority, is given a label implying deviation from norms established by a hegemonic minority.12 Indeed, ‘modal music’ in conventional music theory came to mean music in any other mode than the two used in the euroclassical repertoire of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Those two modes, discussed in Chapter 3, are of course the heptatonic major scale (ionian) and the heptatonic minor scale which has three variants, two of which are ionianised (not ‘ionised’!).13 In conventional music theory, tonal vocabularies using the euroclassical major and ionianised minor modes are often qualified as ‘tonal’, as if all other modes were not also tonal, as if their distinc12. Modes were often named after the peripheral regions of which they were, from a centralist perspective (e.g. Athens, Baghdad, Central Europe), considered typical (e.g. Lydia, Phrygia, Hijaz, Kurd, ‘Gypsy’; see pp. 110-143). 13. As argued in Chapter 3 (pp. 88-90), euroclassical tonality uses less than two modes. The major scale ascends Â Ê Î Ô Û â ê (ionian); the ‘melodic minor’ ascends Â Ê $Î Ô Û â ê (ionianised with ^6 and ^7), the ‘harmonic minor’ Â Ê $Î Ô Û $â ê (ionianised with ^7), while the ‘non-ionianised’ aeolian (‘descending melodic minor’) runs î $ê $â Û Ô $Î Ê (Â).

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tive tonal traits were not also defined by the way their constituent tones are configured. Conversely, the ionian mode (‘major scale’), the most common tonal vocabulary in the euroclassical repertoire, is rarely considered a mode in conventional music-theory circles ‘because’, I’ve heard people say, ‘it’s tonal, not modal’! This tautological travesty not only ethnocentrically relegates ‘modality’ to a state of alterity divergent from a unilaterally hijacked ‘tonal’ norm; also, by excluding the ionian from the realm of modality, it prevents us from investigating which characteristics of that mode may have led to its importance and popularity in Europe in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries.14 The terminological appropriation of ‘tonal’ to refer to just one set of tonal practices during a brief period in the history of the world’s smallest continent is, to say the least, problematic. The false dichotomy ‘tonal v. modal’ is just one example of the confusion, the terms ‘pre-tonal’ and ‘post-tonal’ another, since they both patently imply that music from medieval and early Renaissance Europe (‘pre-’) is as devoid of tones as twelve-tone music (‘post-tonal’, ‘atonal’, etc.). But that’s not all because, for example, anhemitonic pentatonicism has been in widespread use all over this planet before, during and after the so-called ‘tonal’ period. And what about the common use of tertial ionian harmony in today’s supposedly ‘post-tonal’ era? 14. It’s worth remembering that only two of the seven European heptatonic ‘church’ modes (ionian and lydian) contain raised subtonics (‘leading notes’, ^ê) and, in terms of harmony, that only the ionian mode features tertial major triads on the prime, the perfect fourth and the perfect fifth. Did the semitonal pull towards the tonic triad of notes inside the other two tertial major triads, one descending (Ô>Î in IV-I) and the other ascending (ê frequency of tonic (equal temperament) 5. × > frequency of tonic (just temperament) 4. Frequency ratio to tonic

3. Scale degree shorthand

2. Semitones above doh 1. Note name (doh = c) c c# d$

0 1 1

 # $Ê

1:1 25:24 25:24

1 1.042 1.042

1 1.060 1.060

d

2

Ê

9:8

1.125

1.123

d# e$ e

3 3 4

#Ê $Î ^Î

6:5 6:5 5:4

1.2 1.2 1.25

1.189 1.189 1.260

f f#

5 6

Ô #Ô

4:3 45:32

1.333 1.406

1.335 1.414

g$ g g# a$

6 7 8 8

$Û Û #Û $â

45:32 3:2 8:5 8:5

1.406 1.5 1.6 1.6

a

9

^â

5:3

[a#] b$ b

10 10 11

#â $ê ^ê

c

12

8

(^Ê)

7. Interval name in relation to lower tonic (c)

8. Scale degree names (euroclassical: POPULAR)

prime (unison) [raised prime] minor 2nd or semitone major 2nd or whole tone augmented 2nd minor 3rd major 3rd

tonic: ONE flat supertonic FLAT TWO

supertonic: TWO SHARP TWO FLAT THREE

mediant: THREE or MAJOR THREE

subdominant: FOUR [raised subdominant]

1.414 1.498 1.587 1.587

perfect 4th augmented 4th or tritone or diminished 5th perfect 5th augmented 5th minor 6th

1.667

1.682

major 6th

submediant: SIX or

9:5 9:5 15:8

1.8 1.8 1.875

1.782 1.782 1.888

augmented 6th minor 7th major 7th

2:1

2

2

(perfect) octave

SHARP FOUR FLAT FIVE

dominant: FIVE SHARP FIVE

flat submediant: FLAT SIX MAJOR SIX

subtonic: FLAT SEVEN leading note: SHARP or MAJOR SEVEN

Fig. 10. One octave

tonic: EIGHT

Table 5 presents all twelve tones in the Western chromatic scale. Column 1 gives the note names of those twelve pitches in an ascending scale with c@ as its tonic (see also Fig. 10 ^Î, see p. 250, ff.), or like the second scale degree in E phrygian descending to its tonic ($Ê>Â, see pp. 120 and 437).12 Now, in conventional music theory leading note tends to mean the note situated one semitone below the tonic and which is assumed to lead up to that keynote (Kê50¢) lower than the octave above the initial g#. These natural 13. ‘Pure’ means in this context the acoustically unadjusted simple frequency ratios of intervals used in just intonation (see Table 6). 14. ‘Pure’ minor thirds are intervals separated by a frequency ratio of 6:5 (= ×1.2).

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acoustic discrepancies posed particular problems for keyboard players needing to produce, say, both g# (as in an E major triad) and a$ (as in an F minor triad) in the same piece: one or the other would be seriously out of tune.15 Equal temperament tackled the problem by slightly detuning eleven of the octave’s constituent semitones so that the interval between each of them became identical. As Table 6 shows, the equal-temperament perfect fourths (e.g. c-f ) and fifths (c-g) have almost the same values as their justtone equivalents. Thirds, sixths and sevenths, on the other hand, have clearly been the object of more significant doctoring. Equal-tone tuning is essential in many types of Western music, including euroclassical, twelve-tone, parlour song, marches, waltzes, polkas, mazurkas, evergreens, most types of jazz, bossa nova, choro, symphonic film scores, etc., etc. It is, however, unnecessary in music requiring no enharmonic alignment (between d# and e$, g# and a$ etc.) for purposes of modulation or harmonic colour. Moreover, equal temperament is either unnecessary or inappropriate in, for example, most types of blues, bluegrass, blues-based rock, folk rock, not to mention the traditional musics of Africa, the Arab world, the Balkans, the British Isles, the Indian subcontinent, Scandinavia etc., i.e. in any music whose tonality is non-euroclassical and/or drone-based.16 One reason for the relative incompatibility of such music with equal-tone tuning may be the use of drone notes to produce an overall sound that is rich in natural overtones and thereby inconsistent with equal-temperament intervals. Another reason might be the centrality of each interval’s expressive character in relation to a permanent tonic, as in the rāga traditions of India whose aesthetics also often require microtonal pitch distinctions. Artificially adjusting intervals by as much as a quarter-tone, as in equal-tone tuning, is incompatible with the principles of such music. 15. If you’re in C major and need to make first a perfect cadence in the relative minor (E7-Am) and later an altered plagal cadence in C (Fm-C), you won’t want your g# and a$ to be out of tune by a quarter tone. The {G-B-C-Cm} loop in Creep (Radiohead, 1992) would also suffer if played in just tuning (d# and e$). 16. See p. 205, ff. and ‘Open tuning and drones’ (p. 337, ff.).

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Another important consideration is, as shown in Table 7, the pitch location of scale degrees incompatible with the Western assumption that semitones are the smallest possible intervals. Table 7. Intra-octave interval pitches for five heptatonic modes

Columns 1 and 9 in Table 7 show, in ascending order, the scale degrees (including accidentals, where appropriate) of a heptatonic octave.17 Column 2 lists the twelve semitones in an octave ascending in equal-tone tuning from an to an+1, specifying a pitch differ-

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ence of 100 cents between each semitone step. Column 8 provides an incremental listing in cents of each semitone step from the initial an (‘0’=no interval) to an+1, located 1200¢, twelve semitones or one octave higher. Please note that columns 1 and 2 are in complete horizontal alignment with columns 8 and 9. Columns 3-7 show, in cents, the pitch difference between each of the seven scale degrees in five different modes. The pitch location of scale degrees in the ionian and aeolian modes (columns 3 and 5) align entirely with the Western equal-tone semitone pitches given in columns 2 (100¢) and 8 (multiples of 100¢), as do those of Rast (column 4), except for the latter’s two 150¢ (¾-tone) steps â-§ê and §ê-î. In a similar way, Bayati (col. 6) resembles the aeolian mode (col. 5), except for the four ¾-tone steps (150¢) Â-§Ê, §Ê-$Î, Û-§â and §â-$ê.18 The Javanese Pelog scale (col. 7) diverges even more radically from Western equal-tone tuning: neither its Ô nor Û align with those of the other modes in the table.19 The point is that in many types of tonality scale degree pitches do not fit into the simple twelve-semitone grid of Western intra-octave tuning systems. Moreover, as highlighted by the thicker horizontal lines above the start and end of each scale degree in Table 7 and by the varying number of cents given for the interval between scale degrees, pitch placement of an octave’s constituent tones can vary radically from one mode to another. Within the general framework of just intonation discussed earlier, a wide variety of intra-octave tunings are used in different music traditions. Despite a few exceptions, such as the Pelog and Slendro systems of Java, many intra-octave tunings include, as suggested by the thick horizontal line above Ô and Û in Table 7, the natural fourth (4:3), and most include the natural fifth (3:2).20 At the same time, Arab and Indian music theories divide the octave into 16 and 17. See pp. 30-32, ff. for explanation of scale-degree shorthand (§ = ¼-tone flat). 18. Bayati §â and §ê are sometimes given as $â and $ê (cf. Fig. 19, p. 113). 19. For ionian and aeolian, see pp. 85-90, 93, 97-110; for Rast and Bayati, see pp. 113-115; for Pelog and Slendro, see Malm (1977:45-47). 20. See also Table 5, p. 68.

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22 unequal steps respectively, reflecting intra-octave tuning conventions that differ markedly from those of the urban West.21 The Western adjustment of natural intervals into the twelve equal intervals shown in Tables 5, 6 and 7 (pp. 68, 72, 74) has only been in operation for a couple of centuries in urban Europe and America, but it has during that short period managed to replace many earlier vernacular tuning patterns in the Western world, patterns that can be heard today in archival recordings from what were relatively isolated areas like the Outer Hebrides or the Appalachian backwoods.22 It’s impossible to predict if the global spread of Anglo-North-American music during the latter half of the twentieth century, together with the equal-tone tuning of piano, organ, accordion and synthesiser keyboards —plus the inclusion of general MIDI in personal computers, plus the overwhelming use of equaltone tuning in globally disseminated film and games music—, will eventually bring about the demise of other tuning systems. Even if that were to happen, tonal diversity does not, thankfully, depend solely on a variety of intra-octave tuning systems to survive and flourish. The vast variety of modes used on a daily basis in different parts of the world is one healthy symptom of tonal diversity;23 another is tuning in the second sense of the word presented at the start of this chapter.

21. Neutral is often used in the West to qualify pitches between ‘major’ and ‘minor’ thirds, sixths and sevenths. It is a eurocentric term implying that those pitches are heard according to that same intervallic grid at all times in all cultures. The historical phenomenon of musica ficta suggests that not even Europeans have always perceived thirds, sixths and sevenths in the same way. Another ethnocentric notion is that other peoples sing or play ‘in the cracks between the notes’ (of a modern Western piano keyboard, of course). For much more on modes and scales, see Chapters 3 and 4. For maqamat Rast and Bayati, see pp. 113-115. 22. See, for example, ‘Waulking Song’ on Musique Celtique des Îles Hébrides (1970) and ‘The Lost Soul’ on The Doc Watson Family (Watson 1963/1990) 23. See, for example, the nineteen modes with which Greek popular musicians should ideally be familiar (Λαϊκοι Δρόμοι, p. 113).

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Instrument-specific tuning Fig. 12. Neanderthal bone flute from Divje Babe (Slovenia)

The holes in this celebrated Neanderthal bone flute would have allowed its user, some 60,000 years ago, to produce the pitches of an anhemitonic pentatonic scale.24 Since then, a vast number of other wind instruments have been made using various materials, with holes, mouthpieces, reeds, keys, valves, tube lengths, bell shapes and bore sizes constructed and arranged in an infinite variety of ways. All these factors affect the sound of each instrument and determine its tonal vocabulary, i.e. its range and placement of possible pitches as well as their intervallic relation to each other. For example, a shakuhachi flute doesn’t sound distinctly ‘shakuhachi’ (perhaps ‘traditional Japanese’ to Western ears) just because of its timbre, however important that may be. The fact that its five holes also correspond to the five notes of a standard anhemitonic pentatonic scale and that tonal complexity can be increased by exploiting the considerable amount of pitch bend available for each note are factors determining its tonal identity. Using my MIDI software to assign a rapid run of staccato chromaticism to the best shakuhachi sample bank in the world will not make that lick sound like a shakuhachi any more than 128 quantised kick drum semiquavers in a row can ever sound like a real live rock drummer. In short, the physical construction of a wind instrument affects the tonal as well as timbral identity of the instrument and of the musical culture to which it is assumed to belong. Most wind instruments are monophonic and players need, like vocalists, to ensure the notes they produce respect the basic pitch rules of the musical culture in which they are used. A monophonic wind instrument player must also, when part of an ensemble, adjust to a common reference pitch like a=440. Polyphonic instru24. Pentatonic modes are dealt with in Chapter 3 (p.151,ff.).

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Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — 2. Tuning, octave, interval

ments (actual or potential) require further internal tuning. Piano and pipe organ tuning is usually carried out by specialists but portable string instruments are tuned by their players. The pitches to which open strings are tuned vary considerably from one instrument to another. Table 8 shows a few tuning variants for some common string instruments. String note names are provided for clarification and do not necessarily indicate concert pitch.25 Table 8. Some common string-instrument tunings26* instrument

Low string

*Banjo

high string

G

D/C

G

B

*Banjo – Tenor

C

G

D

A

C

Bass

E

A

D

G

G

D

*Bouzouki Charango

G

D

instrument Banjo Tenor Banjo Bass

A

D

Bouzouki* Charango

C

E

A

E

G

D

A

E

Fiddle

D

G

B

E

Guitar (Table 9)

Mandolin/Violin

G

D

A

E

Mandolin

*Saz

C/D

G

C

sa C

ma E

pa G

sa+1 C+1

sa+2 *Sitar C+2 (e.g.)

Fiddle *Guitar (Table 9)

E

A

*Sitar (e.g.)

sa-1 C-1

pa-1 G-1

*Ud

D

G

Ukulele

Saz*

A

D

G

C

Ud*

A

D

F#

B

Ukulele

Several instruments listed in Table 8 have common alternate tunings. For example, a saz can be tuned c-f-c, while a bouzouki can be tuned c-f-a-d or d-a-f-c (2×4-string), or d-a-d (2×3-string, common in rebetiki). Ud tunings vary considerably from region to region (Turkey, Armenia, etc.) and fiddle tunings are often adjusted to the character of the music to be played, typically to create tonic-andfifth drone effects (g-d-g-d, g#-d#-g#-d#, a-d-a-d, a-e-a-e, etc.). Some common alternative guitar tunings (a.k.a. scordatura) used in anglophone music traditions are set out in Table 9. All these tunings can be transposed using a capo.27 25. In Scandinavian fiddling, for example, standard violin tuning is often raised by a whole tone. 26.

* Standard tunings vary widely for instruments marked with an asterisk. Only one common tuning is given in Table 8. For banjo tunings, see p. 331, ff.

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It should also be noted that several string instruments used in the Middle East, the Arab world and the Indian subcontinent (e.g. saz, tambur) are provided with ligatures which function as moveable frets allowing the musician to accommodate tunings based on a division of the octave into more than twelve intervals (Table 7, p. 74). Table 9. Some alternate guitar tunings27 Name

high string

Low string

STANDARD

E

A

D

G

B

E

Open E

E

B

E

G#

B

E

Open D or Vestapol

D

A

D

F#

A

D

Drop D

D

A

D

G

B

E

Drop double D

D

A

D

G

B

D

D ‘modal’

D

A

D

D

A

D

Usage general Delta blues, folk

‘folk’ and related styles

DADGAD

D

A

D

G

A

D

Open G or Taropatch

D

G

D

G

B

D

slide, Delta blues

Dobro

G

B

D

G

B

D

Delta blues, Country

Open A or Hawaiian

E

A

E

A

C#

E

Hawaiian, slide

C sixth

C

G

C

G

A

E

‘New Age’

As mentioned in the section about note (p. 45), some instruments have double sets of strings, for example the twelve-string guitar (2×6), the bouzouki (3×2) and various types of balalaika, each pair of strings being tuned in unison or at the octave. Moreover, each of the piano’s upper keys is assigned its own triple set of strings. The point of such unison or octave duplication is to create a brighter or richer sound for each note. The ‘bright’ effect is due to doubling at the octave or higher, as in the case of 4-foot, 2-foot and mixture registration on the organ. The ‘rich’ effect, however, more likely relates to unison doubling: that’s because two simultaneously sounding strings, pipes or reeds tuned to the same pitch rarely produce that pitch in perfect unison, with the result that a greater number of partials is created for each note than issues from just 27. Some tunings used by Joni Mitchell and Richard Thompson are mentioned on pages 328-330 and 340-341.

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one of the two. Western music exploits this timbral aspect of tuning in many ways, of which three can be summarised as follows. [1] The characteristic ‘rich’ sound of the French accordion derives from each note being assigned two reeds slightly out of tune with each other. [2] Recorded tracks are often doubled, sometimes several times, either digitally or ‘live’, to create an effect of multiplicity. Not only can the copied or repeated tracks be offset from the original by a few milliseconds, they can also be slightly detuned, either naturally or by digital manipulation. The effect of slightly detuning a copied track without simultaneous offsetting resembles the ‘wider’ sound produced by applying chorus or modest amounts of phasing to the same signal source (Lacasse 2000:126-131). [3] Digitally detuning a copied piano track and playing it back with the original produces a ‘ragtime’ effect similar to that created by an out-of-tune piano or by one that has been intentionally ‘soured’. Although, in cases like these, tuning has an obvious timbral rather than tonal function, it should be clear that tones and timbres are interrelated. Indeed, what we hear as two or more separate notes may in another cultural context be perceived as one single sonority, or vice versa. There is in other words a sort of no-man’s-land between tone and timbre where one of the two will attract more of our attention than the other. So far I’ve tried to explain most basic concepts of tonality —note, pitch, tone, tuning, interval and octave. The next two chapters deal with ways of conceptualising tonal vocabulary, i.e. with ways of describing the various tonal constellations that help us aurally distinguish between musical moods, functions and cultures.

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Summary in 14 points 1. EXTRA-OCTAVE TUNING exists basically to ensure that all participants in a musical event perform any given note at the same pitch. CONCERT PITCH (a4=440 Hz) was established as international standard to facilitate such tuning. ABSOLUTE (OR PERFECT) PITCH is a side effect of this standardisation. 2. INTRA-OCTAVE TUNING regulates intervals (see §9) between the octave’s (see §3) constituent pitches so that they are sounded in a consistent fashion. 3. In most Western music the OCTAVE is treated heptatonically, in the sense that it very often consists of seven basic steps (doh ré mi fa sol la ti).¹ The OCTAVE is so called because it is the eighth note you arrive at if you ascend one heptatonic step at a time (doh ré mi fa sol la ti |doh|). 4. If doh is TONIC and numbered Â, the other six SCALE DEGREES are numbered Ê Î Ô Û â ê. 5. Five of the standard Western heptatonic OCTAVE’S STEPS are WHOLE TONES; the other two are both SEMITONES. 6. The standard Western OCTAVE is also divided into TWELVE SEMITONES to cater for varying placement of tone- and semitone steps in different modes. SEMITONAL VARIANTS precede their relevant SCALE DEGREES, e.g. $Î as the minor third and ^Î as the major third scale degree. 7. NOTE NAMES are identical for pitches separated by an octave. The pitch frequency difference factor between two such notes is 2, e.g. a3=220 Hz, a4=440 Hz, a5=880 Hz. 8. The OCTAVE is a useful unit when referring to REGISTER. A standard piano keyboard covers a range of pitches from 29.135 (a0) to 8,416 Hz (c8), equivalent to 7¼ octaves. The average human singing voice spans about two octaves. 9. An INTERVAL is the difference in pitch between two tones. Even if intervals can be measured in Hz, they are most often designated in terms of scale degree difference. In this way the interval between  and Ô (e.g. a@ and d in A) as well as between Ô and ê (d and g) is a fourth (roman counting: (x+1)-y=z).

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10. Conventional SCALE DEGREE NAMES like dominant and subdominant are useful in theories of euroclassical tonality but are irrelevant or misleading when dealing with most other types of tonality. The equation of LEADING NOTE with scale degree 7 (ê = $ê or ^ê?) is particularly problematic. 11. ‘NATURAL INTERVALS’ are characterised by simple frequency ratios expressing pitch difference, e.g. 3:2 for the perfect fifth. Tuning based on such intervals is often called JUST-TONE TUNING and is often heard as clearer and brighter than EQUAL-TONE TUNING. However, while g# and a$ are pitched identically in equal-tone tuning, they can be seriously out of tune with one another when treated as natural intervals. 12. To avoid the problem of ‘g#≠a$’, EQUAL-TONE TUNING adjusts each of the octave's twelve constituent semitones so that each semitone step is intervallically identical. An equal-tone semitone interval is measured as 100 cents. 13. Many music cultures configure the octave's constituent pitches in ways that do not conform to the twelve semitone pitches of Western tunings. (Table 7, p. 74). 14. The individual strings of instruments like the guitar can be tuned in a wide variety of ways to suit particular tonal configurations, styles, modes and moods.

FFBk03Modes1.fm. 2017-03-10, 00:35

Tagg: Everyday Tonality II — 3. Heptatonic modes

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3. Heptatonic modes Intro This chapter is in three parts: [1] an introduction that defines basic terms and sorts out some underlying issues of conceptual confusion (pp. 83-90); [2] a section on the diatonic heptatonic ‘church’ modes (pp. 92-110); [3] coverage of several common heptatonic modes that are rarely on the curriculum in Western seats of musical learning (pp. 110-147). Non-heptatonic modes are dealt with in Chapter 4 (p. 149, ff.). MODE, from Latin modus (=measure, pattern, manner), basically means a way of doing things. Fashion addicts dress a certain way to be à la mode and computers behave differently in secure mode, print mode and sleep mode. Modes are also used in many languages to represent different aspects of the verb. In English we distinguish between If I were a carpenter1 —the subjunctive modus irrealis— and When I was a carpenter —the indicative modus realis. These verbal modes are also called MOODS. Musical modes can also relate to moods.

In music theory MODE has a very particular meaning. Medieval theorists in Europe considered different ways of using rhythm and metre as modes, but the word has for a long time been used solely to denote specific ways of conceptualising tonal vocabulary and its configuration. By TONAL VOCABULARY is meant a store of particular tones used in a particular body of music, be it just a short passage or a complete work. As we saw in Chapter 2 (e.g. Table 7, p. 74), some musical traditions use tonal vocabularies unfamiliar to Western ears in that they contain pitches incompatible with the twelve semitones of standard Western tuning, while other traditions use those twelve semitones in ways that diverge from conventional and familiar Western notions of ‘major’ and ‘minor’. 1. If I Were A Carpenter was recorded by The Four Tops (1968).

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The notion of mode in music theory derives from two main sources: [1] attempts by medieval European scholars to systematise the tonal vocabulary of liturgical music according to Ancient Greek and Arab concepts —the heptatonic-diatonic ‘church modes’ (p. 91, ff.); [2] ethnomusicological classification of tonal vocabulary used in traditional musics. Please note that the Greek mode names in use today—ionian, aeolian, etc.— do not designate the same tonal configurations as in Ancient Greece and that, like a roman font (not like ‘Roman history’ or ‘the Romans’), those mode names start with a lower-case letter.2 One important step in getting to grips with how and why different musics sound different is to distil their tonal vocabulary down to single occurrences of each constituent note inside one octave and to check which of those notes are used most frequently or as points of repose, reference or closure.3 Such distillation of tonal vocabulary can then be presented as a MODE, with its constituent pitches arranged concisely, in scalar order, inside one octave.4 A MODE is simply the manageable conceptual unit resulting from such distillation. Please note that MODE can refer to tonal vocabularies in terms of both melody and harmony but that this chapter and the next one deal mainly with melodic (monophonic) aspects of mode. Another limitation on what follows is that the countless melodic modes used in different music traditions across the world just cannot be dealt with in a book of this size and that I have had to focus on modes relevant to ‘everyday tonality’ of the urban West.5 To put some meat on this rather theoretical bone, let’s start with something familiar. 2. Reasons for this convention are given in the Preface (p. 38). 3. This process is not applicable to all musical traditions whose tonal configurations may vary from one octave register to another, but it does apply to the bulk of what we hear on an everyday basis in the urban West. 4. For example, the ascending sequence of notes a b c d e f g [a] corresponds to scale degrees 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 [8] of the aeolian mode (see Fig. 16, p. 95). 5. There are 120 (5!) permutations of the five given pitches in one simple pentatonic mode, 720 (6!) possible configurations of a hexatonic, 5040 (7!) in a heptatonic and nearly 500 million (12! = 479,001,600) in a dodecaphonic mode. A notional definition of ‘everyday tonality’ is provided in the Preface, pp. 15-17.

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Scales, modes, tonal vocabulary Ex. 3. UK national anthem (God Save The Queen)

Example 3 contains seven different tones: g a b c d e f#, some of which are more important than others. The note g is most important because: [1] the tune both starts and ends on g; [2] the tune’s first half finishes on g (bar 6); [3] 28.6% of the melody consists of the note g.6 That’s why g is heard as the tune’s main reference tone, its tonal centre, its keynote, its tonic. We can say that the tune is ‘in G’. As shown in Table 2 (p. 43), a mode’s tonic is numbered as scale degree 1 (Â). The other six notes in example 3 are numbered 2 through 7 because the tune is heptatonic (ἑπτά=7): it contains no more and no less than seven differently named notes. Their order of appearance in example 3 is: Â (the note g in bar 1), Ê (a, also in bar 1), ê (f# in bar 2: ^ê, ‘major seven’), Î (b@, bar 3: ^Î, ‘major three’), Ô (c, bar 3), Û (d, bar 7) and â (e@, bar 13, ^â, ‘major six’). Figure 13 (below) shows exactly the same tonal vocabulary distilled to single occurrences of notes rearranged in ascending scalar form inside one octave delimited by its keynote or tonic, g. Such reduction of a real tune to an intra-octave abstraction of notes demands that tones registrally outside that octave be included inside it. That’s why God Save The Queen’s lowest note, the f# in bars 1 and 5 of example 3, is shown an octave higher in Figure 13. Fig. 13. Ionian mode in G with scale degree numbers and note names

Although Figure 13 looks like a G major scale, it’s not the sort of scale you hear in real music situations. Indeed, the tonal reality from which the scalar representation of a mode is distilled into a 6. g occupies 12 of 42 beats. None of the other six notes come close to that count.

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theoretical model very rarely features scalar runs through an octave. Figure 13 is simply the abstraction of a specific tonal vocabulary: it’s the heptatonic ionian mode in G reduced to single occurrences of its constituent notes. Its scalar presentation just makes it easier to see those features at a glance. To make the abstract nature of that visual representation as clear as possible, mode notes are rendered as stemless blobs, indicating that they have no duration or rhythm, while the absence of bar lines signals that they have no metre. Figure 13 and similar abstractions of mode are no more actual music any than the alphabet is language in action. In musical practice, modes work more in terms of characteristic motifs and turns of phrase than of scalar abstraction. The UK national anthem tune’s typically ionian cadence formulae Ê Â ^ê Â and Î Ê Â (bars 5-6, 13-14) are a possible case in point because neither of them is included in the abstraction of Figure 13, which distills the ionian mode of not just the real God Save The Queen (ex. 3) but also of the entirely fictitious version shown as example 4. Ex. 4. Fictitious God Save The Queen (also in ionian G)

Example 4 is just as ionian as example 3. Both have g as tonic (Â), both contain Â Ê Î Ô Û â ê (g a b@ c d e@ f#), and both share the same basic melodic profile, but they are significantly different in how that same tonal vocabulary actually sounds. The most striking difference is that between the relative importance of ê (f#) in the original and its use only as brief passing notes in example 4 where â (e@) is given much more prominence (bars 2, 6-7, 11, 13) than in example 3 (just once, in bar 13). The result is that the counterpoise —the main tonal counterbalance or contrast to the tonic (g)7— shifts from f# and a in example 3 to either e and b, or to e and a, in example 4. In short, the specific tonal configuration of a melody is not just a matter of identifying its tonal vocabulary in terms of a mode: modal identification should ideally be complemented with 7. COUNTERPOISE: see Glossary and pp. 161-164, 333-344.

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observations about the relative prominence of certain tones, or combinations of tones, within that vocabulary. This aspect of mode comes closer to how musicians actually use a tonal vocabulary. It also comes a little closer to concepts like the Arab maqam or Indian rāga, both of which include basic formulae for the performance of melodic contour, mood and direction as part of their theory.8 Despite the problems and limitations just explained, I will in this book be using mode, as defined above, as the first port of conceptual call for two reasons: [1] it’s more likely than other theoretical models to be familiar to readers; [2] it can be a useful and manageable tool for theorising tonal vocabulary, provided that the sort of limitations just mentioned are taken into consideration;9 [3] it’s a more adaptable concept than the scale of conventional music theory. But there are other problems with the concept of mode. Another set of difficulties derives from the fact that euroclassical music theory has in general only had to contend with ‘major’ and ‘minor’ modes whereas an almost endless array of modes are in daily circulation outside that tradition. Now, with such tonal diversity it’s clearly useful if you can identify different types of tonality without having to describe them all in detail. That involves recognising the sound of various modes, being familiar with the pitches they contain, with how they’re configured and with the music traditions to which they belong, etc. All those issues are at the heart of Chapters 3 and 4. The point is that although modes may not ‘tell the whole story’, they can be a useful starting point in the understanding of different tonal traditions. That said, before considering the panoply of modes out there in ‘everyday tonality’, it’s necessary to grasp how conventional Western music theory’s major and minor modes fit into the bigger picture, and that involves understanding the concept of IONIANISATION. 8. See p. 112, ff. I’m indebted to Simon McKerrell (Newcastle) for valuable input about the problems and limitations of mode in designating types of tonality in various musical traditions (see McKerrell, 2009 and 2011). 9. See, for example, the specific traits of two types of aeolian melody (pp. 103110).

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Ionianisation ( ^ê) God Save The Queen is in the ionian mode. It’s heptatonic because it contains seven different tones and it’s diatonic.10 The ionian is one of seven heptatonic diatonic modes, each of which can be used, as we shall see (p. 92, ff.), to create quite different sorts of sound. Those differences depend on such structural niceties as the unique location of the two semitone intervals in each diatonic mode.11 The aim of this subsection is to explain what makes Western music theory’s notions of major and minor both special and problematic. Using the keys of C and E by way of illustration, Figure 14 (p. 89) shows the one major and three minor modes that euroclassical performers practise as scales based on each of equal-tone tuning’s twelve possible keynotes. The scale degree numbers above each note show that Î, â, and ê vary from one mode to another while Â, Ê, Ô and Û remain constant. Due to its dominance in the euroclassical tradition, conventional music theory treats the IONIAN MODE as the norm from which all other modes are seen/heard to diverge. Scale degrees 3, 6 and 7 are consequently taken as major by default while minor thirds, sixths and sevenths are preceded by ‘$’ ($Î, $â, $ê).12 However, in this book about ‘everyday tonality’ in which the ionian is just one among several modes in common use, major thirds, sixths and sevenths are also indicated. To avoid the ambiguity of unqualified scale-degree numbers, ‘^’ will indicate major intervals (^Î, ^â, ^ê) just as ‘$’ indicates their minor variants ($Î, $â, $ê). 10. DIATONIC (see p. 92 and Glossary, p. 482) is usually opposed to chromatic, meaning, in Western music theory, that the music so qualified contains pitches diverging from the diatonic, TWO-SEMITONE, FIVE WHOLE-TONE norm of euroclassical music’s ‘major-minor’ tonality. The other six heptatonic-diatonic modes are the dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian and locrian. 11. Heptatonic and diatonic are just taxonomic shorthand distinguishing one general category of tonal vocabulary from others like pentatonic, hexatonic, hemitonic, anhemitonic, chromatic, etc. The melodic minor is the only euroclassical scale to differ in ascent and descent. About rising and falling phrygian/Hijaz phrases, see pp. 128-130. 12. Similarly, ‘This piece is in C’ is more likely to mean that it’s in C major than minor. Moreover, while the single-letter chord abbreviation ‘C’ means C major, a C minor chord needs to be specified as ‘Cm’ (see p. 234). See pp. 30-32 for more on scale degree abbreviation conventions.

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Fig. 14. Euroclassical music’s four modes in scalar form

The three minor-mode variants in Figure 14 are so called because, unlike the ionian, they all feature a minor third ($Î or ‘flat three’). Scale degrees 6 and 7 (â, ê) are configured in different ways for each of the three minor-mode variants. [1] The ASCENDING MELODIC MINOR scale contains, like the ionian mode, a major sixth (^â) and major seventh (^ê). [2] The DESCENDING MELODIC MINOR variant is in the aeolian mode (or ‘natural’ minor) and contains both a minor sixth ($â or ‘flat six’) and a minor seventh ($ê or ‘flat seven’). [3] The HARMONIC MINOR scale contains the same notes in both ascent and descent, and includes, like the aeolian mode, a minor sixth ($â, ‘flat six’) but also, like the ionian mode, a major seventh (^ê, ‘sharp seven’). Minor scales [1] and [3] can be understood as ionianised variants of the aeolian or ‘natural’ minor mode [2].13 As we shall in Chapter 8, the major seventh or ‘leading note’ (^ê, ‘sharp seven’ or ‘major seven’) is so central to the mechanics of tonal direction in euroclassical harmony that a minor seventh ($ê), such as produced on the white notes of a piano keyboard with a@ as keynote (the aeolian mode), only exists in descending melodic contexts. Moreover, as the label harmonic minor suggests, the ‘natural’ minor seventh of a minor-mode triad based on the fifth degree of the scale (‘v’, e.g. an E minor triad containing g@ in the key of A 13. Variant [2] in ex. 14 and mode 6 in Table 16 (p. 95) are aeolian (‘natural’).

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minor) is, in euroclassical harmony, normally altered to a major seventh (^ê or ‘sharp seven’, g#) to produce a major chord functioning as ‘dominant’ (‘V’) in the home key (e.g. E or Eé in A minor) and producing the ‘perfect cadence’ E7?Am (V?i) rather than Em?Am (v-i). In the ionianised worlds of jazz and euroclassical tonality the latter is heard as less directional, less final, because it contains $ê, no ascending leading note, no ^ê leading up to î (=Â).14 I’ve jumped the gun here, rushing into the mechanics of euroclassical harmony before explaining how melody, let alone harmony, uses modes as sets of tonal vocabulary that contribute to the creation of variation and identity in music.

Modes and ‘modality’ Modes are tonal phenomena and mode means the tonal vocabulary used in a particular extract, piece or style of music. However, ‘modality’ is often used in conventional Western music theory not so much to identify a specific tonal vocabulary as to designate en masse innumerable types of tonical tonality that diverge from one single type and from one only.15 Labels like ‘modal jazz’ and ‘modal harmony’ tend to mean jazz and harmony using tonical configurations other than the basically ionian-tertial tonality of the euroclassical and standard jazz repertoires. The differing tonal norms of such repertoires as blues-based rock, of some types of post-bebop jazz, of much pre-Baroque European music —in fact of musics from almost any part of the world at any time— are in other words often lumped together under the rag-bag heading ‘modal’. On the other hand, the ionianised major-minor modality of the euroclassical repertoire and of popular music using that same sort of tonal system (national anthems, hymns, marches, waltzes, parlour songs, jazz standards, etc.) is rarely, if ever, referred to as modal. It’s most often called ‘tonal’ without any qualifier, as if no other kind of tonality existed. This use of tonality and modality implies that modes, by definition tonal phenomena, aren’t tonal, and that one type of tonality —the euroclassical— isn’t modal, even though 14. For more about $ê v. ^ê issue, see p.387,ff. 15. For more on tonal v. modal, see p. 52, ff.

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it couldn’t exist without the ionian mode and the ionianised minor modes that define its specific tonal identity. So, to avoid terminological confusion and embarrassment, all modes, including the ionian, will, as abstractions of tonal vocabulary, be treated here as tonal phenomena central to the understanding of any type of tonical tonality. The binary TONAL V. MODAL of conventional music theory is in other words nonsensical and will not be used in this book.

Heptatonic: why seven? Heptatonic modes aren’t necessarily more widely used than others but they do turn up more often in music theory, not only in the West but also in China, Java, Japan, India and the Arab world. In these traditions the octave is understood to consist of seven underlying tonal positions or steps (Table 10). These basic steps, numbered Âê, are called SCALE DEGREES and can be specified more precisely, either microtonally (e.g. ñ$Ê, §Î, Ñê) or, as in Western music theory, semitonally (e.g. $Î, ^Î). For example, ‘$â’ (‘flat six’) means a minor sixth located eight semitones above the tonic, ‘^â’ a major sixth or nine semitones above Â. Table 10. Heptatonic note names in Arab, Chinese and Hindustani music theory16 Scale degree

Â

Ê

^Î

Ô

Û

^â

^ê

î=Â

Movable sol-fa

doh

ré

mi

fa

sol

la

ti

doh

Arab

Rast dāl

Douka rā'

Jaharka mīm

Nawa fā'

Hussayni şād

Awj lām

Kirdan tā'

… dāl

上 sh à ng

尺 ch ĕ i

工 g ō ng

凡 f á n

六 li ù

五 wũ

乙 y í

上 sh à ng

Sa

Re

Ga

Ma

Pa

Dha

Ni

Sa

movable sol-fa

China (transcr.)

India

Thanks to its use in Arab, Indian and European music theory, the heptatonic scale degree is widely accepted as the basic unit for des16. In North Indian music theory, Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha and Ni are short for Shadja, Rishabh, Gandhar, Madhyam, Pancham, Dhaivat and Nishad. N.B. Arabic note names vary according to tradition. Those in Table 10 are Palestinian and apply only to the central octave in a two-octave (Diwan) fundamental scale. With doh/ Rast set to C, the table’s seven Arab note names are equivalent to Â Ê §Î Ô Û ^â §ê. The ‘Arab sol-fa’ syllables (dāl, rā', mīm, etc.) are almost certainly the source of European solmisation (doh, ré, mi, etc.).

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ignating the constituent tones of almost any mode based on any tonic, no matter how many steps the mode contains. For example, ‘Â Ê ^Î Û ^â’ gives the five heptatonic scale degrees of the doh-pentatonic mode, while ‘(î) ê $ê â $â Û $Û Ô Î $Î Ê $Ê Â’ designates a twelve-note chromatic descent through any single octave. The modes most familiar to euroclassical performers —the ionian and its ionianised minor-mode variants— have already been presented (Fig. 14, p. 89). Those modes aren’t just heptatonic: they’re also diatonic. A DIATONIC mode has two defining features. [1] It includes each of the mode’s seven differently named scale degrees, for example a b c d e f g as Â Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê —the aeolian mode in A— or c d e$ f g a$ b$ for the same scale degrees and mode in C (Fig. 16, p. 95). [2] A diatonic mode contains two steps of one semitone (‘½’) and five of a whole tone (‘1’), for example 1-½-1-1-½-11 for the aeolian but 1-1-½-1-1-1-½ for the ionian (Fig. 16, p. 95).17

The heptatonic-diatonic ‘church’ modes Theory The ‘church’ modes (a.k.a. ‘ecclesiastical’) aren’t just a topic of arcane interest to music historians (Fig. 15a). They’re also relevant to musicians trying to master various jazz and rock idioms (Fig. 15b).18 Structurally, church modes presuppose: [1] the division of the octave into seven constituent pitches (heptatonic), five separated by a whole-tone interval, and two by a semitone (diatonic); [2] a tonal centre, keynote or tonic on scale degree 1 (Â), which can often (not always) be identified as a (real or potential) drone or as the final, or most frequently recurring note in the mode.

17. The harmonic minor features individual occurrences of all seven different notes inside the octave (Â Ê $Î Ô Û $â ^ê) but doesn’t follow the 2-SEMITONE /5-wholetone norm of diatonicism because it runs 1-½-1-1-½-1½-½. Of course, tonic solfa syllables can also be used to designate tones in relative terms (see p. 47, ff.). 18. See, for example, the iPhone app ´Understand Modes’ (Cipher Arts Ltd. and Mark Wingfield, 2012) or almost any number of Guitar Player magazine.

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Fig. 15. Modal theory, ancient and modern19

Figure 16 (p. 95) sets out the seven heptatonic ‘church’ modes in three columns. COLUMN 1 gives the names of each mode and presents its constituent tones using the white notes only of a piano keyboard. Each diatonic mode’s two semitone steps —between mi and fa, ti and doh (e\f, b\c on the white keys)— are marked with a slur. The other five steps —do-ré, ré-mi, fa-sol, sol-la and la-ti (c-d, d-e, f-g, g-a and a-b on the white keys) are all whole tones in all seven modes. The alternative mode names in brackets derive from the tonic note (Â) when the mode is sounded on the white notes of a piano keyboard, e.g. ‘ré mode’ or ‘D mode’ for the dorian (d to d on the white notes), ‘mi mode’ or ‘E mode’ for the phrygian (e to e). COLUMN 2 presents each mode with c as tonic. It also shows each mode’s scale degrees with the apposite symbol (^/$) added to distinguish major from minor thirds, sixths and sevenths,20 for example the occurrence of $Î and $ê in the dorian as opposed to ^Î and ^ê in the ionian. A horizontal line marks the position of each mode’s internal tritone between fa and ti. That tritone is between f and b for all the white-note modes (column 1), but its position varies in columns 2 and 3. For example, while the fa-ti tritone is f-b in 19. Fig. 15a is from Kepler’s Harmonices mundi (1619). Images in Fig. 15b are from the internet. A web search for “guitar modes scales” generated a million hits [201401-31]. Modes are a marketable commodity. 20. Table 11 reveals that Î, â and ê are the scale degrees most susceptible to alteration. $Ê (phrygian), #Ô (lydian) and $Û (locrian) are less common alterations.

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C ionian and a@-d# in E ionian (both Ô-^ê), it’s always between $Î and ^â in the dorian mode (e$-a@ in C dorian and g@-c# in E dorian),21 between $Ê and Û for the phrygian, Â and #Ô for the lydian, and so on. These internal tritone positions, unique to each mode, are marked more clearly by the thick vertical lines in Table 11 (p. 96). Since all the modes in Figure 16 contain a tritone, they can also be called tritonal, as well as diatonic and heptatonic.22 COLUMN 3 in Figure 16 serves two purposes. One is to further clarify the position of semitone (‘½’) and whole-tone (‘1’) scalar steps in each mode, the other to present each mode with a different tonic.23 The unique patterning of tone and semitone steps, and the unique positioning of the fa-ti tritone are essential factors distinguishing one mode from another.

It’s this unique combination of scale degrees, of how the mode’s individual notes sound in relation to each other and to the tonic, that gives each mode its unique flavour. For example, the ionian (C or doh mode), lydian (F/fa mode) and mixolydian (G/sol mode) all contain Î (^Î, ‘major third’). This common trait gives rise to their qualification as ‘major modes’, while the label ‘minor’ is applied to the dorian (D/ré), phrygian (E/mi) and aeolian (A/la), modes, which all feature $Î (‘flat three’ or ‘minor third’; see Table 11, p. 96). These patterns of tritone placement and scalar intervals produce a unique SCALE DEGREE PROFILE for each mode, for example Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â ^ê for the ionian, Â Ê $Î Ô Û ^â $ê for the dorian. As Table 11 (p. 96) shows, those strings of figures indicate that while the dorian shares Ê, Ô and Û in common with most of the other modes, the combination of minor third ($Î, ‘flat 3’), major sixth (^â, ‘major 6’) and minor seventh ($ê, ‘flat 7’) is exclusive to the dorian, just as the mixolydian is alone with its ^Î and $ê. [Text continues after Figure 16.] 21. In D (ré) dorian, sol-fa doh is set to c, in C dorian to b$, in B$ dorian to a$, etc. 22. TRITONAL means containing a tritone; TRITONIC means consisting of three tones. 23. All seven modes can be transposed using any of Western equal tuning’s twelve tones as tonic. I am aware that the ionian (C or doh) mode needed no transposition into C and the phrygian (E or mi mode) no transposition into E!

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Fig. 16. The seven European heptatonic diatonic ‘church’ modes24

Table 11 (p. 96) also shows that the lydian is the only one of the seven diatonic heptatonic modes to include a raised fourth (#Ô) and that the locrian is alone without a perfect fifth, the most likely 24. Mode name mnemonic by Reffett (2013): I (ionian) Don’t (dorian) Punch (phrygian) Like (lydian) Mohammed (mixolydian) A- (æolian) -Li (locrian).

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reason for its rare usage, apart from melodically in heavy metal, and the reason for its infrequent appearance in this book.25 Apart from the locrian, then, the phrygian is the only mode to feature $Ê (‘flat two), but its inclusion of Û (‘perfect fifth’) means that it can be used effectively in music relying on drones, natural overtones, etc. Table 11. Unique scale-degree profiles of the heptatonic ‘church’ modes. ionian (C/doh) dorian (D/ré) phrygian (E/mi) lydian (F/fa) mixolydian (G/sol) aeolian (A/la) locrian (B/ti)

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

^3

2 2

$2

$3 $3 ^3 ^3

2 2 2

$2

$3 $3

4

5

4

5

4

5

#4

5

4

5

4

5

4

$5

^6 ^7 ^6 $7 $6 $7 ^6 ^7 ^6 $7 $6 $7 $6 $7

8=1 8=1 8=1 8=1 8=1 8=1 8=1

All this theoretical detail about mode may seem nerdy and arcane but it’s essential to the understanding of how modes work, at least if the theory is also rooted in practical familiarity with real sounds. Such familiarity is easy to acquire even if you aren’t a musician, or if you have no access to a piano keyboard, because many userfriendly MIDI keyboard apps can be downloaded free to your computer, tablet or smartphone. To ‘check out the feel’ of a mode using only the white notes of the keyboard, all you need to do is: 1. Hold down or repeat the tonic note (c for ionian, d for dorian, e for phrygian, etc.) like a drone in the bass register. 2. With the keynote (tonic) sounding more or less constantly, play short melodic patterns, circling first round the keynote, then venturing further afield, using rising and falling patterns. 3. Listen out for how the mode sounds when you include the semitone intervals e-f or b-c in short phrases that finish on the keynote (Â, the tonic) or on the fifth (Û).26 25. Most music cultures (not all, see the pelog tuning in Table 7, p. 74) treat the perfect fifth as a consonance. The locrian mode’s diminished fifth ($5) means that no normal consonance (no heavy metal power chord, no Highland bagpipe drone, no ‘common triad’) can be constructed on its tonic. The locrian mode is seldom used, except by thrash or death metal soloists with their penchant for the tritone, a.k.a. the diabolus in musica, which, quite appropriately, is also the title of a 1998 album by thrash metal band Slayer.

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4. Apply these white-notes-only tricks to any of the seven modes shown in Table 11. Each of the heptatonic modes in Figure 16 (p. 95) can be transposed so that any of the Western octave’s twelve constituent semitone steps can act as tonic, just as long as the mode’s unique sequence of tones and semitones is retained. For example, the ionian mode, with its unique ascending pattern of steps —1-1-½-1-1-1-½— and of scale degrees —Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â ^ê— produces, with c as its tonic, the notes c d e f g a b. Transposing that same mode with those same step patterns up one semitone from C to D$ produces the ionian mode on d$: d$ e$ f g$ a$ b$ c. Then, if you transpose the same pattern down a minor third from C to A you end up with the ionian mode in A (a b c# d e f# g#). If you carry out those two transpositions of the ionian mode, you will have played the same ionian-mode scale in three different KEYS: C, D$ and A.

Examples Another effective way of identifying modes is to associate each of them with a particular tune. This section provides examples of tunes in the seven diatonic modes just mentioned.

Ionian: Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â ^ê The IONIAN (heptatonic C or doh-mode) is so familiar in the West that it’s hardly worth mentioning. You’ll get the idea if you just think of what sounds similar in God Save The Queen (p. 85), the Internationale, the Star-Spangled Banner, Happy Birthday and Jingle Bells. They’re all either basically or totally ionian (‘in the major key’).

Dorian: Â Ê $Î Ô Û ^â $7 The distinctive flavour of the DORIAN mode comes from its unique combination of $Î, ^â and $ê, as heard in ex. 5 (g c# d@ in dorian E). 26. Û is e in A aeolian, g in C ionian, a in D dorian, b in E phrygian and d in G mixolydian (see Table 11).

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Ex. 5. Simon & Garfunkel (1966): Scarborough Fair (Eng. trad.) E dorian

The Blacksmith (ex. 6) is also dorian, this time in D, even if bars 1-4 are simply la-pentatonic (Â $Î Ô Û $ê; see p. 153, ff.). â (^â, b@), essential to the dorian sound, appears as upbeat to bar 5 and in bar 7, while Ê (e) occurs three times in bars 6-8. Ex. 6. Steeleye Span (1971): The Blacksmith (Eng. trad.); D dorian

The dorian major sixth (^â; b@ in D) is heard in bar 3 of example 7. That note makes an otherwise hexatonic ditty into what may well be the anglophone world’s best known fully dorian tune.27 Ex. 7. The Drunken Sailor (Eng. trad., cited from memory; D dorian)

Ex. 8. Noël Nouvelet (Fr. Trad., cited from memory); D dorian

Although Noël Nouvelet (ex. 8) is in fact hexatonic because it contains only Â Ê $Î Ô Û ^â (d e f g a b@ in D) and no $7 (c), its dorian flavour is unmistakable due to the strong presence of the uniquely dorian placement of the tritone between scale degrees $3 and ^6 (f and b@ in D, bars 1 and 2). For something to sound dorian you have to hear at least Â, $Î, Û and ^â.  and Û are needed to establish the 27. The hexatonic ditty consists of the two arpeggiated triads Dm (d f a =  $Î Û) and C (c e g = $ê Ê Ô) in bars 1-2. The tune’s â is the b@ on the ‘-en’ of ‘drunken’ in bar 3. ‘Early in the morning’ is set to a la-pentatonic descent $7 5 4 $3 1.

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tonal centre while $Î and ^â are what make the dorian sound really distinctive. The three dorian scale degrees 2, 4 and $7 are less specific since they are also present in both the mixolydian and aeolian modes (see Table 11, p. 96).

Phrygian: Â $Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê The PHRYGIAN is distinctive as a heptatonic diatonic mode because it’s the only one to include $Ê (‘flat two’, ‘flat supertonic’, ‘minor second’, etc.) and a perfect fifth (Û). Unlike phrygian harmony (p. 289, ff.), phrygian melody is rather unusual in the urban West. It is, however, widespread, as maqam Kurd, in the Balkans, Turkey, the Arab world and on the Indian subcontinent.28 Example 9, an extract from one of the most popular Greek songs of recent years, contains a strong $Ê presence (f@-e) in bars 22-23. Ex. 9. Sokrates Málamas (2005): ‘Princess’; E phrygian (dromos Ousák)

Another descent with $Ê-Â closure is audible in the D-phrygian pastiche of Spanishness cited in example 10 (e$>d). Ex. 10. Cordigliera (Italian library music, n.d., CAM 004); D phrygian

Phrygian melody also turns up in at least two popular pieces of early twentieth-century music for string orchestra —Vaughan-Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (1910) and Barber’s Adagio for Strings (1936) in phrygian F (ex. 11, g$-f).29

28. Flat-two modes other than phrygian are dealt with in the section ‘Maqamat, flat twos and foreignness’, p. 112, ff.

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Ex. 11. Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings (1936); bars 4-8; F phrygian

Lydian: Â Ê ^Î #Ô Û ^â ^ê The LYDIAN is, like the phrygian, a very distinctive heptatonic diatonic mode because it contains a scale degree found in none other. It’s the raised fourth (#Ô) that sets the lydian mode apart. Heard in the same breath as Â, ^Î, Û and ^â, it’s #Ô that gives the initial motif from The Simpsons theme (ex. 12a) its lydian flavour, even though the extract is strictly speaking hemitonic pentatonic (c e f# g a) because neither Ê (d in C lydian) nor ê (b@) are anywhere to be heard. Similar observations can be made about the initial motif in the radio signature for BBC’s Pick of the Pops (ex. 12b) and about the Romanian dance motif in example 13. They are all lydian because the mode’s unique #Ô is heard in the same breath as its Â, Î and Û.30 Ex. 12. (a) Danny Elfman (1989): The Simpsons theme, lead motif; C lydian (b) Brian Fahey (1960): BBC Pick of the Pops motif; C lydian

Ex. 13. Romanian Polka from Romanian Dances (arr. Bartók, 1915); D lydian

29. The Tallis Fantasia includes many $2-1 passages, e.g. as $a-g (phrygian G) at bars 5 and 8 after ‘B’. The piece, voted into third place by Classic FM’s listeners, was used in the films Remando al viento (Suárez, 1987), Master and Commander (Weir, 2003) and The Passion of Christ (Gibson, 2004). The Barber Adagio was broadcast upon the deaths of Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy, Princesses Grace and Diana, and of Albert Einstein. It was used in such films as Amélie (Jeunet, 2001), Lorenzo’s Oil (Miller, 1992), Platoon (Stone, 1986), Sicko (Moore, 2007) and The Elephant Man (Lynch, 1980). It has also been covered by remix artists like William Orbit (1999). For more phrygian, see p. 112, ff. 30. See also section on the LYDIAN FLAT SEVEN mode, p. 137, ff.

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Mixolydian: Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â $ê Ex. 14. She Moved Through The Fair (Brit./Ir. Trad. cit. mem.) D mixolydian.

After the ionian, the MIXOLYDIAN is the most common heptatonic mode in traditional music from the British Isles. The tune cited as example 14 contains all scale degrees (Â Ê ^Î Ô Û ^â $ê) in D mixolydian (d e f# g a b c@) and is known in numerous variants, including the UK hit Belfast Child (Simple Minds, 1989). Its tonal vocabulary, characterised by an internal tritone between major third (^Î) and minor seventh ($ê), corresponds roughly to the notes playable on a Highland bagpipe chanter.31 Figure 17a shows how those notes are written for pipers while Figure 17b presents the pitches as they are often transcribed, in A mixolydian. Figure 17c represents the same nine notes, but as they actually sound, i.e. as B$ mixolydian with an extra $ê (a$) just under the lower Â.31 Fig. 17. Highland bagpipe chanter pitches: ([a], [b] conceptually; [c]: as heard)

Whether bagpipe chanters were adapted to cater for a mixolydian tonality that already existed in song, or whether Scottish tunes were influenced by the tonality of Highland pipe chanters (or both), it should come as no surprise to find a great number of Scottish tunes in the mixolydian mode (see ex. 15). 31. The Î on the Highland pipe chanter is typically 10¢ and $ê 20¢ below the nearest equivalent pitch in equal-tone tuning (McKerrell, 2011: 174-179). Does that mean the chanter’s notes are really mixolydian or in another mode?

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Ex. 15. Tàladh Chriosda (Scot. Gael. trad. via A.Cormack, 2011); mixolydian E$

Mixolydian tunes are also common in traditional music from England (ex. 16), Ireland (ex. 17) and the Appalachians (ex. 18).32 Ex. 16. The Lark In The Morning (Eng. trad. via Steeleye Span, 1971). B mixolydian; $ê = a@)

Ex. 17. The Lamentation of Hugh Reynolds (from Irish Street Ballads, 1939). D mixolydian; $ê = c@.

Many baião and forró tunes from Northeastern Brazil are also mixolydian. The most famous of these is cited in example 19.

32. Eight more Scottish mixolydian tunes: Campbell’s Farewell, Soor Plooms In Galashiels, The Wee Man From Skye, The Kilt Is My Delight, The Athole Highlanders, The Flowres Of The Forrest (Campin 2009); A A Cameron’s Strathspey, An nochd gur faoin… (Kuntz, 2009). Eight mixolydian tunes in The Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (1959): The Banks of Newfoundland (p. 16), The False Bride (p.37), The Greenland Whale Fishery (p.50), The Outlandish Knight (p.80), The Red Herring (p.86), Rounding The Horn (p.90), The Whale-Catchers (p.100) and The Young Girl Cut Down In Her Prime (p.108). Four more Irish mixolydian tunes: Mug Of Brown Ale, Paddy Kelly’s Jig, The Red-Haired Boy (a.k.a. The Jolly Beggarman) and Redican’s. Three more Appalachian mixolydian tunes: Black Is The Color Of My True Love’s Hair, Old Joe Clark and Jenny In The Cotton Patch.

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Ex. 18. I’ve Always Been A Gambler (US Trad. via New Ruby Tonic Entertainers, 1974, v Betsy Rutherford). G mixolydian; $ê = f@.

Ex. 19. Luiz Gonzaga (Senior): Asa branca (1955). G mixolydian; $ê = [email protected]

Please note that the mixolydian mode is not an exclusively pre-industrial affair. Gonzaga’s main fan base was among immigrants from the Northeast living in Brazil’s vast southern metropoles (São Paulo, Rio, etc.). Besides, the ^Îs and $ês in examples 20 (e@ and b$) and 21 (g# and d@) should dispel any notion of rural antiquity. Ex. 20. Righteous Brothers: You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’, start of v. 1 (1964); C mixolydian; $7=b$

Ex. 21. Beatles: Norwegian Wood, sitar intro (1965b). E mixolydian; $7=d@.

Aeolian: Â Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê After the ionian, the aeolian is probably the most familiar heptatonic diatonic mode in the ears of the urban West. It turns up in a wide range of musical traditions, including the euroclassical 33. All f@s in ex. 19 are in the accordion part (upper notes) which is played in constant parallel thirds with vocal line (lower notes).

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where it provides tonal material for some of the repertoire’s best known tunes (examples 22-24).34 Ex. 22. Mozart: Symphony no. 40 in G minor (I) (1788), bars 1-4; G æolian.

Ex. 23. Beethoven: Symphony no. 5 in C minor (I) (1808), bars 6-13; C æolian

Ex. 24. Chopin: Marche funèbre (1839); B$ æolian

The aeolian mode has the same pitches as the ionian, dorian and mixolydian on scale degrees 2, 4 and 5. Its characteristic sound resides elsewhere, more specifically in the unique positioning of its two semitone steps — Ê-$Î, Û-$â— and of its internal tritone between major second (Ê) and minor sixth ($â). The three euroclassical tunes just quoted put these distinctive aeolian traits to good use. Mozart (ex. 22), in G aeolian, lets us hear the $â-Û (e$-d) semitone three times in under two seconds and includes the $â-Ê tritone (e$-a@) in the harmony behind bars 4-5. Beethoven, in C aeolian (ex. 23), uses the $â-Û semitone twice (a$-g in bars 2-3, 6-7) and states the Ê-$â tritone (d-a$) boldly in bar 6. Chopin, in B$ aeolian (ex. 24), uses grace notes to emphasise the mode’s Ê-$Î semitone (cd$) in bars 1-2 and its $â-Û semitone (g$-f) in bars 5 and 6. Like Mozart (ex. 22, bars 3-4), Chopin also introduces the î-$ê-$â-Û descent that is both aeolian and phrygian (b$ a$ g$ f in ex. 24) but exclusively aeolian if, as is the case in the extracts cited, the major second (Ê, not $Ê) is already heard as part of the mode.35 34. The aeolian is after all the only heptatonic diatonic mode, apart from the ionian, to be included in conventional European music theory (as the ‘descending melodic minor’, see Figure 14 (p. 89)) and to be practised by budding euroclassical performers as a scale. 35. Ê is a@ in bar 2 of the Mozart (in G) and c@ in bar 1 of the Chopin extract (in B$).

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In The Language of Music, Deryck Cooke (1959) examines the aeolian traits just mentioned: Ê-$Î, Û-$â and î-$ê-$â-Û. The numerous examples of these melodic gestures cited by Cooke are all in the euroclassical tradition and suggest that those aeolian patterns in that tradition occur in contexts of grief, pain, anguish, gloom, misery, misfortune, death, mourning and resignation.36 Indeed, the Û-$â-Û and Ê-$Î-Ê gestures of Figure 25, in D aeolian, certainly fit the penitence implicit in the words Kyrie eleison (Lord, have mercy). Ex. 25. Kyrie ‘Orbis Factor’: aeolian in D37

Even in The Sacred Harp (1844),38 despite strong tonal influences from popular rural song of British origin, aeolian tunes are more likely to be sung as hymns of gloom (death, penitence, etc.), while hymns of praise and glory are more often set to ionian, doh-pentatonic, or major (or quartal) hexatonic tunes.38 A similar tendency to connect the aeolian with ‘gloom’ has lived on in musical styles drawing on the euroclassical tradition. Budapest pianist Rezső Seress’s Vége a világnak (1933), later recorded by Billie Holiday as Gloomy Sunday (ex. 26), became a 36. See Cooke (1959) on ‘(5)-6-5 (Minor)’ and ‘1-2-3-2 (Minor)’ (pp. 146-151), ‘1-(2)(3)-(4)-5-6-5 (Minor)’ (pp. 156-159) and 8-7-6-5 (Minor)’ (pp. 162-165). I’m using ‘gloom’ as umbrella concept for the states of mind enumerated by Cooke (grief, misery, misfortune, mourning, resignation, etc.). You could argue that Mozart’s Rondo alla turca (1783) and Schubert’s Erlkönig (1814), both æolian but running at high tempo and surface rate, express something quite different. 37. The medieval classification is dorian with the b$ treated as an accidental. 38. The Sacred Harp, first published in 1844, is a collection of traditional hymns sung a cappella in Protestant churches in the US rural South. The hymn book’s three-part arrangements developed from the vernacular harmony sung in eighteenth-century rural Britain before the introduction of organs and choirmasters. Many of its melodies are anonymous, often pentatonic, hexatonic or in other modes than the heptatonic ionian. Doh, ré, mi etc. rendered as differently shaped note heads (‘shape note singing’). Three examples of ‘doom-andgloom’ aeolian hymns in The Sacred Harp: ‘Sons of Sorrow’ (Em aeolian), ‘Parting with the World’ (F#m), ‘Death like an Overflowing Stream’ (Em). N.B. The melody of Sacred Harp hymns is always in the tenor part.

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widely covered ‘suicide hit’, with its one $â-Û (e$-d in bar 6) and eight $Î-Ê semitone gestures (b$-a in bars 3-4, 11-14), in addition to its typically aeolian î-$ê-$â-Û descent (g-f-e$-d in bar 6).39 Ex. 26. Billie Holiday: Gloomy Sunday (1941): vocal line, verse 2; G æolian

The fate of Romeo and Juliet, also involving suicide, is another aeolian tune of tragedy (ex. 27), with its initial $Î-Ê (c-b), its $â-Û (f-e, bar 3) and an extended î-$ê-$â-Û descent (a-g-f-e, bars 2-3). Ex. 27. Nino Rota: Theme from Romeo & Juliet (1968); A æolian $Î-Ê

Repeated $Î-Ê motifs of anguish are not uncommon in rock music either, as amply demonstrated on the /eI/ of ‘run away’ and ‘pain’ in bars 2 and 12-13 of example 28. Ex. 28. Aerosmith: Janie’s Got A Gun (1989: 4:04-4:34); F æolian $Î-Ê

39. For more on Gloomy Sunday, see the homonymous Wikipedia article [140201].

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Example 28’s young ‘Janie’, subjected to sexual abuse by her ‘daddy’, gets the gun of the song’s title so she can ‘put a bullet right through his brain’ and ‘run away-ay-ay from the pay-ay-ain’. In example 29, Nirvana’s remarkable lead vocalist, Kurt Cobain, uses $Î-Ê (a$-g), in a much lower register than Aerosmith’s Steve Tyler (ex. 28), produces not a bitterly wailing accusation but something more like the repeated litanies of someone trapped in the vicious circle of a debilitating depression. It’s certainly closer to a suicidal Gloomy Sunday (ex. 26) than to Cobain’s passionate, primal yelling in the chorus of Smells Like Teen Spirit (ex. 195, p. 281) or of Lithium (ex. 30).40 Ex. 29. Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991, verse); F æolian $Î-Ê (a$-g).

Ex. 30. Nirvana: Lithium (1991, chorus); D æolian $Î-Ê (f-e)

Lithium compounds (e.g. lithium citrate) are active ingredients in prescription drugs used to take the edge off bipolar extremes, to make mania less manic and depressive states less suicidal, so to speak. Shunning speculation about Cobain’s bipolarity as autobiographical ‘reason’ for the acutely expressed depression of the verses and impassioned anger of the choruses in Teen Spirit and Lithium, it is nevertheless clear that $Î-Ê gestures in aeolian melody are not exactly a happy affair in rock music, however life-affirming the expression of that anger may strike us as listeners.41 40. It’s a depression that ‘goes on and on and on and on’ or ‘round and round and round and round’ —HELLO, HELLO, HELLO, HOW LOW? Lithium’s lyrics include the line ‘Sunday morning is everyday for all I care’. Does life’s absurdity become more tangible to a depressed individual on a Sunday, due to its special status as day of the week after the revels of Friday and Saturday (as in Gloomy Sunday?)? That’s not the point here. In fact, pointlessness may be the key point and FOR ALL I CARE the key phrase; or, as heard in the terms of Generation X, near the end of the Teen Spirit lyrics: WHATEVER! NEVER MIND!’

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Does all this mean that the aeolian mode is intrinsically tragic, sad, suicidal or angst-ridden? Ex. 31. God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen (Eng. trad., cit. mem.) D aeolian

Ex. 32. Arturov: Amur Partisan Song (mel. cit. mem.); D aeolian

Examples 31 and 32are entirely aeolian but neither is connected with gloom, doom, depression or anguish. God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen proclaims happiness for the Christmas season (‘let nothing you dismay’) and brings ‘tidings of comfort and joy’, while the Russian partisans are celebrating victory, the bravery of their heroes and their successful arrival at the shores of the Pacific.42 Ex. 33. Kaoma: Lambada (1989). D aeolian (d e f g a b$ c = Â Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê)

Moreover, although the lyrics of example 33 include crying over lost love (‘chorar ao lembrar de um amor’), the song’s main message, borne out by the official video’s sexy dancing and cheery faces, is getting over that sadness by falling in love again and dancing in the sunshine on the beach (‘dança, sol e mar’). We are in other words a long way from Chopin’s Marche funèbre, from Gloomy Sunday. and from the rock angst of examples 28-30. 41. See Anger is an Energy (Nehring, 1997), as well as Anti-depressants and Musical Anguish Management (Tagg, 2004). 42. Complete text of the partisan song, in Russian with translation, is at G marxists.org/subject/art/music/lyrics/ru/po-dolinam.htm [140201].

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How can the same mode be associated with such different moods? Three factors explain this ostensible connotative paradox, the first of which to do with speed and movement. Although the Mozart, Beethoven, Aerosmith and Nirvana extracts (ex. 22, 23, 28-30) move at a moderate or brisk pace, the Chopin (l=50), Billie Holiday (l=60) and Rota extracts (l=84) are all quite slow. The ‘Merry Gentlemen’ move much faster in alla breve metre (h=90) and the Lambada dancers at a brisk 120 bpm, but the Russian partisans (l=96) are only slightly faster than Romeo and Juliet (l=84). The difference between them is one of surface rate. Whereas the aeolian tune for Shakespeare’s tragic lovers repeatedly pauses on single notes (the recurring ‘h_z’ in example 27), the Russian partisans in example 32 keep on moving (r il|l l l il|il l ). But that doesn’t explain why the Aerosmith and Nirvana examples are anguished but our ‘happy aeolian tunes’ (ex. 31-33) aren’t. The second factor is the way in which the distinctive aeolian traits, discussed in conjunction with examples 22-30, are treated. While the $Î-Ê and $â-Û semitones, the Ê-$â tritone, and the î-$ê-$â-Û descent are highlighted in those extracts, the ‘happy’ aeolian examples do not dwell on those traits. In fact the traits either do not appear at all —there’s no î-$ê-$â-Û descent and no Ê-$â tritone in those examples— or, as in the case of Ê-$Î and Û-$â, they are simply passed over as part of the melodic phrase’s overall profile.43 A third factor is the difference in timbre and delivery between the rock (ex. 28-30) and the ‘happy’ examples. Neither listlessly repeated litanies (ex. 29), nor guitar distortion, nor full drumkit, nor the urgent yelling of a solo male vocalist (ex. 28, 30) is anywhere to be heard in examples 31-33. The final factor is one of tonal familiarity and cultural convention. If you’re mostly used to the tonality of the euroclassical repertoire and its widespread use in various forms of popular music, you’re more likely to assume that there’s some sort of automatic correspondence between the tradition’s simple major-minor binary and the equally crude bipolarity of ‘happy v. sad’.44 If you have experi43. The [a-]g>b$ ([Û-]Ô>$â) gesture in Lambada’s bars 4-5 is a possible exception.

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ence of other tonal traditions you’ll be less liable to make such assumptions.45 To put the affective aspect of the major-minor binary into perspective, it’s worth noting that a 2013 poll among readers of Rolling Stone magazine asked to name their ‘saddest song’ revealed that seven of the top ten tearjerkers (70%) were in the major key, that two (20%) were in mixed modes, and that only one (10%) was in an unequivocally minor mode. The sadness perceived in those songs was therefore more likely to be a matter of lyrics, tempo, vocal timbre, register, melodic profile, articulation and instrumental restraint and much less of an issue of major v. minor.46 Moreover, the fact that most tunes in the cheery, glitzy 2014 Eurovision song contest were in a minor mode suggests that the MAJORMINOR = HAPPY-SAD binary is in sore need of revision.47

‘Hypo’ modes? 48

Non-diatonic heptatonic modes So far I’ve presented the seven heptatonic ‘church’ modes, of which six —the ionian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian and aeolian— are on the radar screen of Western music theory. But there are countless other heptatonic modes in everyday use around the world that are not. Now, this account can do no more 44. Parlour song, hymns, national anthems, polkas, waltzes, tangos, music hall songs, and most pre-Kind-of-Blue jazz (Davis, 1959) are all types of popular music whose tonality is basically ‘classical’ (see Chapter 8). For a more detailed discussion of problems with the minor-major dualism of ‘happy v. sad’, see ‘Minor-mode moods’, especially the sections ‘Sadness?’, ‘Ethnicity and archaism’ and ‘The Virginian’s British minor-mode connection’, in Ten Little Title Tunes (Tagg & Clarida, 2003: 307-330); see also Tagg (2013: 264-65, 334). 45. For more about ‘minor=sad/major=happy’, see Tagg & Clarida (2003: 307-324), Parncutt (2012: passim) and Tagg (2013: 264-5). 46. The Rolling Stone saddest song poll is at G rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-pollthe-10-saddest-songs-of-all-time-20131002 [140201]. Major-key songs were I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (H. Williams, 1949), Sam Stone (Prine, 1971), Black (Pearl Jam, 1992), He Stopped Loving Her Today (G. Jones, 1980), Cat’s In The Cradle (Chapin, 1974), Everybody Hurts (REM, 1993), Tears In Heaven (Clapton, 1992). The mixedmode sad songs were Nutshell (Alice in Chains, 1994), Something In The Way (Nirvana, 1991). The only minor-mode sad song on the list was Hurt (Nine Inch Nails, 1994); an extract from the Johnny Cash version of Hurt is ex. 79 (p. 154). 47. Eurovision Song Contest (Copenhagen), wBBC1, 2014-05-10, 20:00 hrs.

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than address a very small sample of all those other modes. Given this vast tonal variety, I have chosen to focus on modes that Western listeners may well recognise but also hear as ‘different’ or ‘exotic’, more specifically on modes containing $Ê (‘flat two’) and/or #Ô (‘sharp four’) and/or an augmented second (scale step of 1½ tones). These modal features are common in music from the Arab world, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, Greece, Turkey and southern Spain. Tonality in that populous part of the world shares many common traits, even if terms and labels can vary radically from one area to another.49 For the sake of brevity, and for the six reasons given in footnote 50,50 I will use the Arabic word maqam ( ‫ ;ﻣﻘــﺎم‬plural maqamat, ‫ )ﻣﻘﻤــﺖ‬to qualify that general geomusical part of the world and its commonality of tonal traditions. To further simplify the account, I will largely avoid discussion of modes containing microtonal scale steps because their constituent notes are difficult or impossible to produce on a Western fretted instrument like the guitar or on a piano keyboard. 48. The hypomode section, based on the Groves entry on Glarean (Powers, 1995: 406-412), has been withdrawn due to unspecified errors reported in an email to the author by a scholar of Renaissance music. I speculated about explanations of bimodality in the work of Heinrich Glarean who, in his Dodecachordon (1547), organised ‘church’ modes into the system familiar to users of the iPhone app Understand Modes and readers of Guitar Player magazine (ftnt. 18, p. 92 and G guitarplayer.com [090718]). My point was that since tonal configurations in popular music can shift between, say, ionian and mixolydian, between aeolian and phrygian, etc., it might be useful to examine music theory predating the euroclassical era with a view to finding models of tonicality that don’t put the ionian mode and V-I cadences at the centre of the tonal universe. Since this subsection was largely peripheral to issues covered in this chapter, its removal does not affect the main narrative. However, I apologise for any errors it may have contained and for any confusion that it may have caused. 49. For mode name problems, see Pennanen (2008) and Ordoulidis (2011). 50. The six reasons are: [1] It’s short. [2] It’s Arabic, a language spoken or understood by many in the maqam world. [3] It’s a concept close to the sense of mode used in this chapter. [4] Musical scholarship has a long tradition in the Arab world and maqam is a central concept in music making throughout the region. [5] Non-Arabic languages spoken in the region use the Arabic maqam names for several specific modes (e.g. Hijaz/ ‫ ﺣﺠﺎز‬as hicaz (Turkish), hitzaz/Χιτζάζ (Greek), Хиджаз (Bulgarian). [6] Maqam is called makam in Turkey and Bulgaria (макам) even if it’s called dromos (δρόμος) in Greece.

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The account that follows, ‘Maqamat, flat twos and foreignness’, is divided into three parts. The first of these (pp. 112-143) is a rudimentary theoretical introduction to the modal practices of the regions enumerated in the previous paragraph. The second part zooms in on the modes of flamenco (pp. 126-131) and of some traditional music from the Balkans (pp. 132-143).

Maqamat, flat twos and foreignness Basic concepts and theory ‘MODE’, as defined earlier, is probably the Western notion closest to the Arabic concept maqam (pl. maqamat). The same word — makam— is used in Turkey (pl. makamler) and Bulgaria (макам), while the Greeks call it dromos (δρόμος = ‘road/way’, pl. δρόμοι). Whatever its name, a maqam, like a mode, designates a specific tonal vocabulary, typically presented as an array of seven different notes, usually arranged in scalar order inside one octave.51 Unlike a mode, however, a maqam octave is understood to consist of two parts, usually tetrachords (p.116, ff.). It also specifies pivotal tones in the vocabulary, and is often connected to a certain register or to a particular starting note or tonic on the ud.52 Moreover, a maqam contains rules defining its melodic development: ‘[t]hese rules describe which notes should be emphasised, how often, and in what order’.53 Finally, a maqam can also relate to paramusical phenomena that are more nuanced than the spurious HAPPY-V.-SAD distinction between major and minor modes in the West. 51. Some modes, including many Turkish makamler, are, for reasons too complex to explain here, presented including notes above the upper tonic. 52. [1] For example, maqam Bayati (ex. 2 in Fig. 20) ‘usually starts on D, but it can also start on G and A. When transposing Arabic maqamat, musicians mention the tonic name after the maqam name for clarity, e.g. “Bayati on G”’ (maqamworld.com [140205]). Another example: maqam Hijaz Shad Araban has the same relative scale-degree profile as Hijaz Kar (Â $Ê ^Î Ô Û $â ^ê, ex. 5b in Figure 20) but has g rather than d (or c) as tonic. [2] Ud: lute used in both vernacular and learned traditions of Arabic music. Fretless instruments are well suited to maqam music because microtones can be produced without having to ‘bend’. 53. See Gmaqamworld.com [140204]. There are many more maqamat in relatively local use in Turkey, North Africa, Iraq, Iran, etc. See pp. 85-87 for the need to consider tonal configuration, not just tonal vocabulary when discussing mode.

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There are between thirty and forty maqamat in common use today.53 Figure 20 (p. 114) lists just six of the basic maqam families and presents the tones of at least one of the maqamat belonging to each of those six.54 Two modes in the Hijaz family are included (nos. 5a and 5b) to give an idea of how different maqamat can belong to the same family.55 Figure 20 (p. 114) exists in other words solely to help explain and exemplify a few basic principles of modal theory and practice in the maqam world.56 Starting with traits familiar to Fig. 18. Maqam Rast individuals outside the maqam world, Rast (Â) is clear in the melodic cadence at the end of the song. Ex. 39. Sokrates Málamas (2005): ‘Princess’; E phrygian (δρόμος Ουσάκ); e f@ g a b c d in E = Â $Ê $Î Ô Û $â $ê.

The $Ê>Â gesture is also present, though less prominently, as c@-b in example 40, at the words yillari ağla, kiskanır rengini and baharda yeşiller. The $Ê-Â is in the phrygian melodic cadence Ô-$Î-$Ê-Â, the lower tetrachord in Kürdi makamı (e-d-c-b in B, bars 4, 8-9). However, in this sad song, Turkish singing star Sezen Aksu67 does make conspicuous use of $Ê in the bold leap of a fifth (c-g=$Ê-$â) for the words düşler (‘dreams’) and ıçmiş (‘drink up’). By echoing the tune’s initial b-f# (Â-Û) the $Ê-$â establishes $Ê as the song’s tonal counterpoise (see p. 161, ff.). With such a bold gesture repeated at the start of the recording’s vocal line, the $Ê in the c